$34.5 billion gold discovery made in Yakutat

An out-of-state investment company is causing controversy in Yakutat after it staked hundreds of mining claims on sacred Native sites and around river systems that have driven the community's economy for generations.

Mining claims staked by out-of-state company triggers concerns about fisheries, Native lands

An out-of-state investment company is causing controversy in Yakutat after it staked hundreds of mining claims on sacred Native sites and around river systems that have driven the community's economy for generations.

Oklahoma City-based Geohedral LLC announced last week that it staked 521 new claims that could yield billions of dollars of gold on 10,420 acres, which adds to a 48,000-acre block it claimed last year.

"We think it's a world class discovery," said Herb Mee Jr., president of The Beard Co., a stakeholder in Geohedral.

The companies were testing the area this summer and estimate the claims possess around 34.8 million ounces of gold.

"A 2-million-ounce discovery is considered a significant discovery, so 17.4 times that amount would obviously be a very significant discovery," Mee said.

At $990 per ounce in today's market, the gold is valued at about $34.5 billion. Geohedral estimates there is a significant amount of silver within the claims, too, but the price of silver is a lot lower than the price of gold, he said.

The company is now looking for mining industry partners to move forward with the project. It is still unclear right now how the company intends to extract the gold from the area but has said it will do it properly, Mee said.

"We envision no environmental problems in what we will be doing," he said.

Larry Powell, chairman of the Yakutat Salmon Board and the town's mayor from 1971 to 1992, said he was unsure how mining operations of this scope could not have environmental impacts.

"It's hard for me to see how water systems and fish in particular, but other types of water fowl, can possibly coexist with a huge open pit mine right in the middle of some of the most prolific drainages for fisheries habitat, fisheries production, anywhere that I know of," he said.