Writing - Shannon Kelly Donahue

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Environmental Writing

Chilkat Inlet on a flat calm day, with blue sky and snow-covered mountains reflected in its glassy surface

Writers Rebel • May 30 2024

The Herring, the Whale and the Mining Executive

The herring came in on Tuesday, pulsing into Mud Bay with the tide, heralded by flocks of gulls and roaring sea lions. The run occurs in a flash, like their iridescent bodies catching sunlight as the school shifts in unison to evade a predator. Herring run when the water temperature is just right. Females seek the shelter of eelgrass to lay their eggs. Males follow and fertilize, leaving milky blankets of milt to settle and create more life, more herring. The herring bring the first real pulse o

Ravencall • April 26 2023

The Chilkat Watershed — Threatened by International Mining Corporations

Jilkáat Aani K_a Héeni in the Lingít language — the Chilkat Watershed serves as an important ecological, geographical, and cultural link between the coastal temperate rainforest of Southeast Alaska and the dry, subarctic tundra and taiga of the Yukon Territory — and the tiny sliver of British Columbia wedged in between the two.

Opinion

Juneau Empire • January 1 2023

Opinion: SEACC United clears the air on unionization

On Dec. 9, 2022, non-management employees of Southeast Alaska Conservation Council unionized as SEACC United, joining the Communications Workers of America, District 7, an AFL-CIO affiliate. With a public supermajority of all eligible — permanent, non-management — employees, the union was established in accordance with the National Labor Relations Act.

SEACC United went public Dec. 12 with a request to SEACC leadership for voluntary recognition. We informed leadership that if we were not recogn

Juneau Empire • September 8 2021

Opinion: BC mining industry is toxic to both sides of the border

Environmentalists in Southeast Alaska are hoping to renew a push for action on pollution of transboundary waters flowing from Canada into the U.S. South of the Juneau, heavy metals run out of the Tulsequah Chief mine opening and down to holding ponds next to the Tulsequah River Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008. Leakage from those ponds can be seen entering the river that flows into the Taku River down stream. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire file)

The British Columbia mining industry’s opinion piece in las

Anchorage Daily News • August 14 2019

Letter: Mine discharge permits legalize pollution

“We pursue a higher standard.” That’s the slogan of Coeur Alaska, owner/operator of Kensington Mine. Coeur’s “higher standard” recently led to them settling with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over 200 wastewater discharge violations at Kensington from 2015.Additional violations included unauthorized discharge of acid rock drainage into Lower Slate Lake, multiple effluent sampling violations and failure to repair a fuel storage containment structure for over two years, among others.

Press Releases

SEACC United • February 17 2023

SEACC Fights Workers’ Union Victory

JUNEAU Alaska (Áakʼw Ḵwáan Territory), February 17, 2023 — Southeast Alaska
Conservation Council continued to fight its workers’ federal right to unionize today when it filed
a challenge to the National Labor Relations Board’s February 13 decision granting SEACC
United a formal union election.

Derek Poinsette

Glacier Creek in the fall with golden foliage and termination dust

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • April 27 2022

Conservation Organizations Demand Public Process on Palmer Project Permit

HAINES, ALASKA (Deishú/Lḵóot and Jilḵáat Kwáan) — Local and regional conservation organizations (Audubon Alaska, Great Bear Foundation, Earthjustice, Lynn Canal Conservation, Rivers Without Borders, and Southeast Alaska Conservation Council) called for a public process surrounding the Palmer Project’s revised waste management permit application in a letter to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) Tuesday.

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • April 24 2020

Supreme Court Rules Clean Water Act Does Not Sanction Loophole

Thursday’s United States Supreme Court decision in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund validates the strength of the Clean Water Act to protect our nation’s waters. The decision recognizes polluters cannot avoid the Clean Water Act’s permit requirements just by pumping pollution into the ground where doing so is the functional equivalent of discharging that pollution directly into streams, lakes, and oceans.

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • July 31 2019

Plan of Operations Phase II Approved for Controversial Mining Project

Haines, Alaska, July 31, 2019: Alaska Mental Health Trust Lands Office has approved Constantine Metal Resources’ Phase II Plan of Operations for the controversial Palmer VMS Project, allowing the Canadian mining company to move forward with underground mine exploration in the Chilkat Valley.

Calls to Action

Shannon Donahue

Brown bear tracks in river silt on the Chilkat River

Great Bear Foundation • March 20 2023

Protect Alaska's Chilkat and Klehini Rivers from Mining Impacts

The world’s largest congregation of bald eagles is threatened by a mine being developed near Alaska’s Chilkat and Klehini Rivers.

The Chilkat and Klehini rivers are critical wildlife habitat and sustain the Chilkat Tlingit of Klukwan, and the community of Haines, Alaska, where the Great Bear Foundation's Northern Office is located. The proposed Palmer Project, a copper/zinc mine, will seriously impact the rivers of the Chilkat Valley, debilitating the entire ecosystem.

The Klehini River

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • July 26 2022

Help us get the BLM’s attention on the Palmer Project!

The Chilkat Watershed is one of the most dynamic and biologically diverse areas in all of Alaska, and the place I am fortunate to call home.

Derek Poinsette

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • April 29 2022

The Public deserves a voice on the Palmer Project! 🗣

The Constantine-DOWA partnership is trying to inject their wastewater from mine exploration into the ground near-pristine tributaries of the Chilkat River.

Shannon Donahue

Lutak Inlet with a ferry boat, and text that reads "will your community embrace us?"

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • April 11 2022

Clips From the March 24 Ports & Harbors Committee Tell the Real Story

As the Haines Borough barrels ahead to develop shipping facilities at Lutak Dock, they’ve been talking in-depth with the Yukon mining industry about how best to design Phase III and beyond to accommodate ore shipments, while simultaneously telling the community they are not developing an ore facility.

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • April 8 2022

An ore transfer facility by any other name is still an ore terminal.

Recently I wrote asking you to tell the Haines Borough Planning Commission you oppose Phase 3 of the four-phase Lutak Dock development project, an elevated platform allowing ore and other industrial goods to be shipped through the Chilkat Valley and Lutak Inlet.

Environmental Policy

Great Bear Foundation • June 2 2023

Great Bear Foundation Comments on Palmer Mine Permits

Public comment to Alaska Department of Natural Resources on APMA J20195690#1- A Hard Rock Exploration Application Amendment Within the Juneau Mining District- Glacier Creek

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • July 8 2022

Letter to EPA Region 10 on Palmer Project Waste Management Permit

A letter Shannon wrote on behalf of six organizations requesting that the EPA conduct due diligence to ensure the Clean Water Act is properly administered for the Palmer Project.

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council • January 12 2022

Excerpt of Public Comment on America the Beautiful 30x30 Initiative

A section of Southeast Alaska Conservation Council's public comment on protecting the Chilkat Watershed under Biden's America the Beautiful 30x30 Initiative.

Hannah Reeves

Photo of Shannon Donahue standing on the Chilkat River on a fall day with golden foliage and low hanging fog behind her. Shannon has long, brown hair, is smiling and wearing a black top.

Shannon Kelly Donahue is an environmental writer, editor, and advocate, based on the Chilkat Peninsula just south of Deishú (Haines), Alaska, on Jilkáat Aani.

Shannon specializes in environmental, nature, and place-based writing, climate change and science communication, clean water advocacy, environmental policy, nonprofit communications, academic writing, and creative nonfiction.

Connect with her on LinkedIn with the blue button below. Download her CV with the black button.

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