JUNEAU -- The state's top environmental protection official accepted an industry-funded trip to Northwest Alaska for an anniversary celebration of a massive mine regulated by his agency.
Larry Hartig, the state's environmental conservation commissioner, reported in a financial disclosure last week that he'd accepted round-trip flights from Anchorage to Red Dog Mine, which produces zinc and lead and generated $638 million in profits last year.
It's Alaska's largest mine. It's also responsible for widespread pollution from lead and other metals around Red Dog and along a 50-mile road that leads from the mine site to a port on the Chukchi Sea.
Red Dog is run by Teck, a Canadian company that operates the mine in a joint venture with NANA, a regional Alaska Native corporation that owns the land where Red Dog is located. The Native corporation received $195 million in royalties from Teck last year; NANA paid Hartig's airfare for the trip, reported as $422 in his department's annual executive travel report.
Hartig was appointed to his position in 2007 by Gov. Sarah Palin and retained by Govs. Sean Parnell and Bill Walker. Walker's reappointment of Hartig generated criticism from at least one environmental group that felt Hartig was too soft on polluters.
Hartig's Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for Red Dog's wastewater discharge permit, and it is expected to issue a preliminary draft of a new permit within the next month. Residents of the village of Kivalina, about 70 miles west of the mine, have in the past sued over pollution, saying it violated the U.S. Clean Water Act. The mine paid a $120,000 fine in 2009 for violating its federal water discharge permit.
Red Dog is in a remote area 50 miles from the Chukchi Sea, but nearby water, soil, plants and animals, as well as mine workers, are monitored for elevated levels of heavy metals like zinc, cadmium and lead. The mine has also used a helicopter to disperse a water-based solution to control "fugitive dust" that escapes from its operations.
In a prepared statement, a spokesman for Red Dog said the anniversary event was to celebrate the mine's "past, present and future."
"We wanted to honor and recognize significant people from Red Dog's past. Larry Hartig is one of those individuals," said the spokesman, Wayne Hall.
Hartig once worked as an attorney for Teck -- then named Teck Cominco -- and in 2010, after he had become commissioner, the public interest law firm Trustees for Alaska said he should remove himself from participation in an appeal related to Red Dog's discharge permit.
It asserted in a letter to Hartig's department that he was a "staunch advocate for Teck during his many years of providing counsel, including during Teck's years of violations of the Clean Water Act."
In a phone interview from Washington, D.C., where he was traveling this week, Hartig said he participated in the anniversary celebration after getting a request from NANA.
He said he took the trip -- on a combination of commercial and small planes -- because he tries to visit different areas of the state and because it was a chance to visit the mine site. He said he didn't speak to anyone from Teck on the trip or about the mine's permits.
"If that was the way it was going to be used, I wouldn't have gone," he said.
Asked how he could effectively regulate a mine after participating in its anniversary celebration, Hartig responded: "If I didn't attend any kind of event, or I didn't involve myself with any group that we regulate, I would be pretty isolated from the world."
He said he also meets with environmental groups and other nongovernmental organizations.
"It's part of my job to be talking to all these people that are involved in environmental concerns," Hartig said.
Red Dog is a big economic engine for its surrounding area. In addition to the royalty payments to NANA, Teck says it has also provided more than 500 full-time jobs.
The mine also makes $18 million in minimum annual lease payments to a state entity, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which put $180 million toward construction of the road and port system to transport Red Dog's zinc and lead.
Altogether, the jobs connected to the mine, the port and the road make up more than 20 percent of the jobs in the Northwest Arctic Borough, according to an AIDEA fact sheet.
The mine's 25th anniversary celebration was held last July. Other guests included former Gov. Bill Sheffield, Alaska Native leader and former NANA President Willie Hensley, and Don Lindsay, Teck's president and CEO.
Photos in the mine's newsletter show a celebratory Red Dog cake and a table covered with fresh fruit and flowers. Hartig's financial disclosure said lunch was provided along with his airfare.
Hartig said his travel was authorized by the chief of staff to former Gov. Parnell.
Asked whether such a trip would be authorized by the Walker administration, a spokeswoman for the governor, Grace Jang, said in an email that she couldn't respond to the question before Friday.
Hartig's industry-funded trip to the mine's anniversary celebration "doesn't smell right, but unfortunately, it's not unusual," said Bob Shavelson, director of the environmental group Cook Inletkeeper. He has criticized Walker's reappointment of Hartig.
"It's almost like we're losing the distinction between our government and our corporations," Shavelson said in a phone interview Thursday.
"Larry's a nice guy -- he's always been responsive with me. But I don't feel like, from my perspective, he's representing the Alaska interest over the corporate interest in most occasions," Shavelson added. "Anytime your top regulator takes a gift from a corporation they're meant to oversee, there's a question about objectivity."
Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously said Red Dog is owned by Teck. The land is actually owned by NANA Regional Corp., the Native corporation based in Kotzebue. Teck operates the mine in a joint venture with NANA.