Labor Department seeks federal court order to inspect Alaska gold mine
- Alaska Beacon
- 57 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Fairbanks-area mine owners have been engaged in a years-long legal battle over a federal law that allows inspectors to evaluate mines for health and safety
By Haley Lehman
Alaska Beacon
The U.S. Department of Labor is asking a U.S. District Judge to require a Fairbanks-area gold mine to allow a federal inspection. It’s the second time the department has asked.
The Department of Labor and Alaska Goldmine LLC owners Sheldon Maier and Janne Maier have been engaged in a years-long legal battle since the Mine Safety and Health Administration accused them of refusing to allow inspectors onto the property in 2022, according to court documents.
Alaska Goldmine LLC mines gold ore around Pedro Creek, north of Fairbanks off the Steese Highway, not far from where Felix Pedro first discovered gold in the region in 1902.
The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 requires mines to be inspected for health and safety conditions yearly.
Its owners claimed the mine was no longer operational, but according to court documents, inspectors saw heavy digging machines moving at the site and several passenger cars parked at the mine in September 2025. Inspectors flew over the mine in a helicopter later in September but did not see anyone at the site.
Alaska State Troopers informed an inspector in September 2025 that the Maiers accused the inspector of criminal trespass and threatened to arrest the inspector if he went back onto the property without a court order.
The plaintiff claims that the Maiers’ failure to allow inspectors to inspect the property “constitutes a continuing threat to the safety and health of the miners and other persons in or about the mine site.”
Janne Maier told the Alaska Beacon by email Monday that she and Sheldon Maier have retired and are no longer operating the mine after a 2023 ruling from a federal judge. They had not received the summons, as of Monday.
Maier said that they are using their private property, not state land, off the Steese Highway where they haul material to their Fairbanks home for landscaping. No commercial or mining activity is taking place on their private property, she said.
“As we are not engaged in commerce at our current property, and as we are not licensed for any mineral extraction operation or gravel operation, the MSHA agency has no authority to inspect our private property,” she wrote.
These developments come after several years of contention between the parties that began in August 2022, when the Mine Safety and Health Administration of the Labor Department received an anonymous tip that alleged Alaska Goldmine LLC was an unregistered mining operation. Investigators visited the mine in August and September 2022 to conduct safety and health inspections, but court documents stated that Maier blocked them from entering the mine both times. Investigators reported that they flew over the mine in a helicopter and saw pieces of equipment used for gold mining that showed the site was an active mine.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration issued 17 citations totaling $8,134 in penalties to Alaska Goldmine LLC, according to MSHA data. Inspectors also issued an order to halt operations until miners provide proof of new miner training, but they say they saw moving mining equipment at the mine in June 2023.
Inspectors claimed that the mine had up to three employees. Sheldon and Janne Maier wrote in an application to mine on state lands in 2020 and in an email to the Mine Safety and Health Administration officials in July 2023 that they have no employees, and that friends that visit the mine and stay in the trailer are not employees.
In 2023, a federal judge issued an order preventing Maier from operating the mine without an inspection and without proper miner safety training.
Sheldon Maier denied the allegations in a local radio show in April 2023. He said he stopped communicating with the inspectors after they visited his mine on multiple occasions.
“I have 17 egregious safety violations waiting for me,” he said on the radio show.
Janne Maier filed a lawsuit against four inspectors in September 2023, stating that the inspectors violated the coupler’s fourth amendment rights by searching the mine without their permission or a warrant on multiple occasions over a seven year period.
“The MSHA agency has a longstanding history of abusing their mandate and misusing public funds to conduct harassment and coercion against small mine business owners without providing a warrant or evidence of a complaint,” Janne Maier wrote.
The case against the inspectors was dismissed after a judge found that the summons was not properly served.
Both parties agreed to dismiss the case against the operation in October 2024 after Maier wrote that they were no longer mining. However, inspectors say that is no longer the case.
Attorneys for Acting Labor Secretary Keith E. Sonderling filed the federal request for an injunction on April 24 and the case was assigned to Judge Aaron Christian Peterson.
• Haley Lehman graduated from James Madison University and reported for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
