Palmer copper project advances as the Chilkat Valley pushes back

The Palmer Project, an advanced copper-and-zinc exploration prospect near Haines, has become a years-long flashpoint in the Chilkat Valley — a strategic critical-minerals asset in the eyes of the state and its developer, and a threat to the Chilkat River's salmon in the eyes of many who live there.

Vizsla Copper, which took over Palmer from American Pacific Mining in 2025, is advancing it as a domestic source of critical minerals — the copper, zinc, and other metals the federal government considers strategically important. The company began a roughly 10,000-meter drilling program this summer, and in January Gov. Mike Dunleavy sent Vizsla a letter of support calling Palmer a strategically important exploration asset for state and national mineral supply. Vizsla describes its work as disciplined and exploratory, aimed at a future decision on whether a mine would be economic.

Opponents want that decision to be no. A "No means go" campaign led by the group Chilkat Forever gathered nearly 300 Chilkat Valley residents behind a letter to the Haines Borough Assembly in January, urging that the river be kept "free of acid-generating mines and full of fish — forever." Their central concern is acid drainage from any future mine reaching the Chilkat, which supports one of Southeast Alaska's last king salmon runs and the eulachon central to the Tlingit village of Klukwan, among the project's most vocal opponents.

The land belongs to the Alaska Mental Health Trust, whose leases help fund mental health programs statewide. In February, the Trust Land Office extended Vizsla's Palmer lease through 2033, allowing exploration to continue.

For now, Palmer remains an exploration project. No mine has been proposed for permitting, and any proposal would have to clear state and federal environmental review before development could begin.