September 4, 2013 — The fear in Dillingham, AK is that the mine could scuttle the town’s salmon fishery, a sustainable economic engine supporting more than 10,000 jobs and creating $1.5 billion in annually.
It is looking increasingly likely that the best decision on the Pebble Mine proposal will be to follow the advice: “choose fish every time.”
Last week, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy spent part of her tour of Alaska hearing local opinions on the proposed Pebble Mine project, an operation that a recent article in The Washington Post called “the biggest environmental decision facing Obama you’ve never heard of.”
While the planned gigantic open-pit mine in Southwest Alaska has been in the works for roughly a decade, many of the details pertaining to the Pebble Mine and its operation remain under wraps. What the developers—the Pebble Limited Partnership—have been very forthcoming about, however, is the richness of their discovery, which they claim is the largest untapped copper resource left on the planet. They believe it could produce as much as half a trillion dollars in revenue.
But the partnership has yet to release its final mine plan specifying precisely where it will dig and—perhaps of greater concern—where it will dump its waste. The company’s recalcitrance has drawn the ire of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who sent John Shively, the Pebble Partnership’s CEO, a letter earlier this summer criticizing his organization for inciting “anxiety, frustration, and confusion that have become the norm in many communities” by failing to provide details of its proposed operations.
Meanwhile, the few available specifics—which the Ocean and Public Lands teams at the Center for American Progress complied in a recent issue brief, “Mining in Alaska’s Bristol Bay Region Threatens a Sustainable Economy”—have polarized neighboring native villages and inspired a broad coalition of opponents, including commercial and recreational fishermen, Alaska natives, and conservationists. In addition, numerous jewelry companies, including Tiffany & Co., have pledged not to buy Pebble’s gold.
Last Tuesday, McCarthy held two public meetings in Alaskan municipalities with great interest in the proposed mine project. The first public hearing was in Dillingham, a small fishing hamlet of about 2,000 people situated where the Nushagak River meets Bristol Bay, about 150 miles as the crow flies from the Pebble claim. There, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, she heard a “unanimous” message of opposition to the mine. This is not surprising, since the town is wallpapered with posters and bumper stickers featuring a red-bordered white circle with the words “Pebble Mine” bisected by a red slash. The fear in Dillingham is that the mine’s development could scuttle the town’s famed salmon fishery, a sustainable economic engine supporting more than 10,000 jobs and creating $1.5 billion in annual economic output.
Michael Conathan is the Director of Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress.
Read the full opinion piece at the Center for American Progress