Mother Kuskokwim Condemns Donlin Gold Project's FAST-41 Designation

BETHEL, ALASKA— The Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition condemns the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council's decision to add the Donlin Gold project to its Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (“FAST-41”) list. This insensitive federal action is particularly inappropriate while our region’s Tribes are waiting on the mine’s federal permitting agencies to address flaws identified by a federal court and, more importantly, responding to the humanitarian crisis following the hit our region took from Typhoon Halong.  A rushed permitting process threatens to override critical environmental protections and silence Yukon-Kuskokwim communities who depend on healthy rivers for survival.

The Donlin Gold project poses existential threats to the Kuskokwim River and communities sustained by its waters for thousands of years. In addition to raising utility rates for residents by up to $265 per year, the project would generate massive amounts of cyanide-laden tailings and require a 316-mile natural gas pipeline across pristine landscapes—all threatening salmon runs already in crisis and subsistence resources Alaska Native families need to survive.

FAST-41 was designed to streamline transportation infrastructure, not to circumvent community threats or expedite projects that repeatedly fail environmental review and permitting standards. The Permitting Council’s decision ignores that many Alaskans—particularly Alaska Natives in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta—have grave concerns about this mine project.

Project sponsors claim commitment to “listening to and engaging with” communities, yet pursuing accelerated permitting while fundamental questions remain unanswered tells a different story. This is corporate profit prioritized over Indigenous rights, subsistence ways of life, and environmental protection.

We call on the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a rigorous Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement addressing all judicial concerns before issuing any permits. Federal decision-makers must honor their trust responsibilities to Alaska Native peoples and recognize there can be no fast track when entire ecosystems and communities hang in the balance.

The Kuskokwim River is not a commodity. It is the lifeblood of our region. No amount of gold can take its place.