Exploration continues as opponents decry project

Published on June 16th, 2010

By MARGARET BAUMAN

One drill rig is already up and running at the exploration site of the proposed Pebble mine, while to the south, the Bristol Bay sockeye fishery is under way, with debate over the mine and its possible affect on the fishery showing no sign of waning.

"This is anti-Pebble; it has nothing to do with mining," says Bob Gillam, founder and head of the executive team of an Anchorage investment firm, who was speaking out again against the Pebble mine last week in Dillingham. "No one in the (Renewable Resources) Coalition has said 'let's stop mining.' But clearly we, as Alaskans, have to come down on the side of the fishery.

"Fish is much more important to Alaska" (than mining), he said.

Gillam, who describes himself as a supporter of mining and development, said he has been traveling at his own expense to address dozens of Rotary and business groups around Alaska about the Pebble project. The Renewable Resources Coalition, led by retired fishing guide Anders Gustafson, is arranging venues for the presentations, and Gustafson has been accompanying Gillam. The nonprofit group has a stated mission to protect and preserve the viability of the state's abundant fishing and hunting resources and the land and waters they need to survive.

Gillam said the focus of his presentations is the location of the Pebble mine at the headquarters of the Bristol Bay watershed, home of the world famous sockeye salmon run. "As I go though the history of copper mining for the last 100 years, not one single copper mine has been operated without major environmental disturbances, and, in many cases, catastrophes," he said.

"It would be a bit of a stretch to assume that this one would be substantially different.

"It has to do with the track record in the U.S. of large open pit mines and it has to do with copper itself as a poison to salmon," he said. "If you increase the amount of copper in water where salmon reside on their way to spawn, a small increase, from two to eight parts per billion, you find salmon that can't find their way home" to natal streams, he said.

Economic and environment

Environmental issues have always been critical to subsistence in rural Alaska, along with economic survival. Both have become the focal point of an ongoing public relations campaign being waged by both sides in a series of television ads. Opponents of the mine have emphasized the critical need for an unpolluted environmental for the fish. Proponents have emphasized jobs they say development of the mine creates.

The fishery involves thousands of year-round jobs, as well as thousands of seasonal jobs, in fisheries related businesses. The Pebble mine itself would provide comparatively fewer permanent positions. Should that mine be developed, however, there is potential that other mines would follow.

While Gillam and Gustafson were meeting with fishermen and others in Dillingham, Kim Williams, the new executive director of Numanta Aulukestai, was traveling around the region with members of the Western Shoshone Tribe, who were speaking in villages about their own experiences of promises unkept by firms that mined in their region.

In a major ruling on Dec. 3, 2009, the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling enjoining the construction and operation of the Cortez Hills gold mine proposed by Barrick Cold Corp. The court found that enjoining the mine was in the public interest due to the "irreparable environmental harm threatened by this massive project."

Defending mining

John Shively, head of the Pebble Partnership, is meanwhile aggressively defending the right of the mine to proceed, to extract huge amounts of ore - copper, gold and molybdenum - from state lands designated for mining. The partnership of Northern Dynasty Minerals in Vancouver, B.C., and Anglo-American, one of the world's major diversified mining groups based in London, has spent millions of dollars to date on exploration and public relations on the project.

From June through October of this year, the Pebble Partnership plans about 50,000 feet of drilling to continue to look at the prospect, about the same as last year, Shively said.

Sometime in 2011, the Pebble Partnership plans to make permit applications to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, a process that will take three years or more, he said. Assuming the permits are granted, there would be another three to four years of construction before operations could begin, he said.

"We're not in the business of destroying streams; where the project is there are no streams at all," he said. The opposition would have people believe there is one river system. There are eight river systems. We are potentially connected to two.

"We are going to have to meet the state water quality standards, which are very high," he said.

Shively also said the design work is in progress for a massive tailings dam, to contain tons of tailings from the mine site. "Assuming we get that far, we have to have a design that withstands earthquakes, and we will have to prove to people that we have them," he said. "It's a complex project."