Chickaloon Coal Leases
Find out about this proposed mine, right in the heart of the Mat-Su Valley.
The Chickaloon Coal Lease area covers 33,000 acres of Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (AMHT) lands. The AMHT uses its lands similarly to the way a land grant university uses theirs: to generate revenue for its beneficiaries, in this case Alaska’s Mental Health programs and providers. AMHT holds only the subsurface rights to their Chickaloon lands however, and can generate revenue only from the energy and mineral resources underlying these lands.
The Chickaloon Coal Lease lands were offered for leasing in 2006 and a Canadian company that specializes in Alaskan mining, Full Metal Minerals, obtained a coal exploration lease for 23,000 acres. Citing several concerns, primarily strong local opposition to the project and technical difficulties to extract the coal, Full Metal Minerals relinquished the claim in April 2007. However, the Alaskan Mental Health Trust Land Office stated there may in the future be other mining bids for the land.
In May, 2011 the AMHT Board of Directors chose to begin the process of leasing 11,000 acres of the Chickaloon lands to coal development. This process is ongoing, and we will keep this page updated with current information on the status of that development.
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