In 1979, the median household income in communities within the Northwest Arctic Borough was 30 percent below the statewide average.

By 1999, 10 years after the Red Dog Mine went into operation and hired people locally, median household income had increased to within 10 percent of the statewide average, according to a new economic study done by Northern Economics Inc., an Anchorage-based economic consulting firm. The study was done for the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state development corporation that financed and owns a port and 60-mile access road for the mine.

In 1979, median household income for Alaska was $25,414 per year. In villages in the Northwest Arctic Borough, it was $17,756.

By 1999, U.S. Census Bureau data showed that statewide median household income had increased to $51,571. In the same year, median income in the Northwest Arctic Borough had increased to $45,976, according to the Northern Economics study.

The report is part of a series of studies the authority is doing with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a possible $160 million dock extension at the port on the Chukchi Sea.

AIDEA and the Corps are studying an extension so ore can be loaded directly into ships, eliminating the need to transfer ore from the port to ships offshore by lightering barges, according to John Wood, AIDEA's manager for the project.

Ore is shipped to market during the ice-free season from Red Dog port. If ore can be loaded directly, costs would be reduced, helping the mine cope with periodic dips in zinc prices, Wood said.

More ore could also be shipped because a longer dock would allow ships to be loaded earlier in the spring and later in the fall, extending the shipping season.

Eventually, this will make it possible to develop other zinc deposits that have been discovered near the present mine, Wood said.

Red Dog is now the world's largest lead and zinc mine, according to Teck Cominco Alaska Inc., which owns and operates the mine.

In July 2002, there were 580 people employed in Red Dog operations, amounting to 21 percent of all jobs in the region and 43 percent of private sector jobs, according to the Northern Economics report.

In 2000 and 2001, wages and salaries paid by the mine amounted to about 33 percent of all wages and salaries paid in the Northwest Arctic Borough and about 43 percent of all private sector payroll in the region, according to the report.

Teck Cominco employs 450 workers directly in mining. Another 130 workers were employed by NANA Management Services Inc., which provides camp management, housekeeping, catering and other services, and NANA/Lynden LLC, which operates trucks carrying ore from the mine to the port.

In July 2002, 56 percent of all jobs created by the mine were filled by shareholders of NANA Regional Corp., which owns the mine. NANA is the Alaska Native regional corporation in Northwest Alaska.

Teck Cominco reported a total payroll of $38.38 million for 2001 for its employees in Alaska and outside the state who support Red Dog operations. Within Alaska, the company paid $31.5 million in wages and salaries to employees, of which $22.28 million were paid within the Northwest Arctic Borough.

More than half of the payroll within the state, or $17.42 million, was paid to shareholders of NANA Regional Corp., which owns the land on which the mine was developed.

Smaller communities, where mine workers live and rotate to jobs at Red Dog, have benefited the most.

In Kivalina, a coastal village northwest of Kotzebue, 14 of 37 people employed in wage-paying jobs, or 38 percent, work at the Red Dog Mine.

In Noorvik, another small community, 28 of 84 jobs in the village, or 33 percent, is held by people who work at the mine.

In Kotzebue, the largest community in the Northwest Arctic Borough, 28 workers of 720 employed, or 3.9 percent, are in jobs that support mining operations.

The Northwest Arctic Borough agrees that the mine has brought major economic benefits to the region, but the Northern Economics report understates benefits Red Dog is bringing to the rest of the state, said Tom Bolen, public services director for the borough.

A number of shareholders of NANA hired from local villages to work at the mine decided to move to Anchorage or the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

"To that extent, some of the employment benefits are now bypassing us," he said.

The report also does not take into consideration the longer-term, cumulative benefit of the mine, he said. Many more NANA shareholders have worked at the mine since production started in 1989 than are now employed.

Most of those no longer working at Red Dog have used their experience as a stepping stone to better opportunities, Bolen said.