Comments on: New shipping trade route opens with Williams Port

By: iliamna resident says

iliamna resident says — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:41:00 +0000

Lisa Reimers maiden name is Anelon. Her mother ,sister and brothers are board members of Iliamna Natives Limited , Iliamna Village Council and Truth about Pebble. Iliamna Natives Limited received 69,000 acres of land by way of ANSCA. If Pebble wants a road to Cook Inlet it will pass through their ANSCA land. If Pebble wants Iliamna’s “social license” it will come from Iliamna Village Council. Lisa claims that her company is making life cheaper in Iliamna yet she owns no home in Iliamna. Lisa moved back from Oregon to start Iliamna Development Corp and she chooses to live in Anchorage where her company has offices in the same building as Pebble. So much for Sean Magee’s statement in a letter to Senator Jay Ramras that we use only established business’s with years of experience to fulfill our service contracts. Another untruth by Pebble? Maybe someone other than a non-resident should talk to the Homer Chamber of Commerce about living in Iliamna?

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:18:10 +0000

I believe that the environment and the well being of everyone should be taken in to concideration. It doesnt matter if you are native or white (as the above stated) what matters is what is wrong or right. When you have a fuel spill in a pristine river and lake, you should be held accountable for it. Not just because you have a corporation background that you should not have to face the fact and pay the fines.
Here in Homer barges have gone from Homer to Williams Port before Pebble, so I dont see anything “new” there.

By: Kathy Stevens

Kathy Stevens — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:14:06 +0000

No matter what an Alaska Native people try to do to help themselves through economic hard times, there are lots of white people like the Williams to put them down. No doubt the previous comments came from their camp. Greedy prices such as they want to pass along weren’t working – so face it, the economic realities came to the forefront.

This is “new” in the sense that it is a route between Homer and Williams Port. It is “new” in the sense that it is a small village corporation doing the work. It is “new” yes in part because of Pebble. The billions of dollars spent by environmental groups to beat down Pebble could be used to help small villages trying to survive, people trying to survive, but instead they like to throw their money in the water of public opinion, not to help people so that they don’t need the employment of a big mine. It’s obvious that no matter what mistakes a small village corporation makes, no matter what they try to do to make a difference in their lives, there will always be the people who love the trees better than their fellow man.

By: Banya

Banya — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:24:31 +0000

Articles like this amaze me…this may be the facts as you know it, but here is some history….
In the 1930’s Carl Williams (hence the name Williamsport) started a boat & freight hauling business from Williamsport (Iliamna Bay) to Pile Bay over the 15 mile road! This business still EXISTS today and is run by Carl’s son & grandson. The family has continued this without the backing of a Billion dollar mine group or a native corporation. The Williams family has continued this business with their own hard times and pride. This has helped and accommodated fellow fishermen and the native villages. Pile Bay was a village also in the 1940’s. Pile Bay has supplied the locals with lumber to build, fuel and lending a hand when many were in need of help on the mountain road for MANY years. The Pebble mine has come into the area and now tried to take over any business the Williams’ have worked hard to continue since the 1930’s. And in the last 75+ year they have helped to fulfill the needs of all the local villages. I do understand the fuel cost has been an issue, but until the entire state seen a rise in fuel costs the Pile Bay business was just like any other fuel business. One subject so conveniently missed is the fact that while one of IDC fuel tankers of diesel was parked by the “world famous Iliamna River” their tanker collapsed and spilled 2500+ gals of diesel fuel into the ground and river stream. See Anchorage Daily news article (http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/824149.html) But it seems due to the fact that they have “millions” of dollars the issue has just been swept under the rug. It is heart breaking to know what a greedy place the Iliamna Lake area has become since the Pebble Mine arrived with MONEY. So for the record, this is not a “NEW” shipping trade route this was started before Reimers or Shivey were even BORN!

By: Chetto

Chetto — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:37:36 +0000

All sounds good, however what IDC seemed to leave out was the fact that on their first fuel shipment that had a rather large fuel spill next to a major salmon river. (posted June 8, 2009 in ADN) It was over 2 months befor clean up of contaminated soil was moved out of the flood plane, where it had flooded two times caring fuel down river into lake Iliamna. Fuel still continues to seap out into the river. And the port in williamsport is private property to which IDC will not talk with land owners. And other not so legal things continue to take place. So what I am saying is watch out for the fox in the hen house.

By: Susan Tyler

Susan Tyler — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:47:23 +0000

Good work, Iliamna! When ever a village figures out the solution to economic problems in the villages, it’s going to be a much better solution than anything outsiders will think up.

Good luck to you, and to Homer for a new economic relationship. Now, if Petro would make sure its economic stimulus trickles down to the consumer at the Homer gas pump, that would be all the better.