Bristol Bay Alaska is home
to the last truly Wild Sockeye Salmon run in the entire world. The
waters that flow down from the Mulchatna, Kvichak, Wood and Nushagak
Rivers through Bristol Bay and into the North Aleutian Basin are ripe
with a multitude of life that feeds and sustains the entire North
Pacific Fishery. From massive Chinooks to darting trout, these
previously undisturbed waters have sustained the way of life in our
region for at least 4000 years and possibly longer. The brown bears
roam along streams to grab up the wonderful meals provided by Mother
Nature as moose meander around the grassy creek banks and a bald
eagle soars overhead searching to swoop down and grab that perfect
salmon to carry of and devour as a meal with fledglings. Every year,
millions of Chinook, Sockeye and Coho Salmon make the journey back to
their home streams through the gauntlet of seiners, drifters, setters
and anglers that depend on this priceless and sustainable fishery for
their livelihood and subsistence. But... this is rapidly changing
and now we stand at a point in history where We The People can make a
real difference.
Currently there are at
least a dozen active mineral exploration projects being worked in the
headwaters to Bristol Bay. From the massive Pebble East/West Project
to the smaller projects with names like Humble, Big Chunk, GroundHog
and Togiak Terrace; corporate greed has found it's way to the
furtherest reaches of Alaska. Just the exploration activities have
caused irreversible damages to the formerly pristine nature that
surrounds these mining claims. To allow this to go any further would
clearly show disregard and ignorance to the importance of Bristol Bay
as a national and global resource that is essentially the feed waters
for the entire North Pacific and the fisheries that exist here.
The lead project in the
campaign to destroy Bristol Bay is called the Pebble Project. There
are many other names that have been applied to the stake itself, such
as Pebble Creek and Pebble Beach. Currently this project is a 50/50
Partnership between Canadian based Northern Dynasty Minerals and
London based Anglo-American PLC. There have been talks that NDM is
looking to sell it's portion of the project, but nothing has
happened. But let's look at what the mine may or may not look like.
John Shively, CEO of the
Pebble Limited Partnership, "They don't know what we have in
mind, only rumors that we've been constantly working to make it the
perfect environmentally sensitive mine. I think they're trying to
stop it before it starts because we might actually do it and do it
right." MIGHT isn't good enough Mr. Shively.
This has been the
standard line for folks associated with the multitude of entities
that are involved in the Pebble Project. They keep on saying that
they don't have a plan, they don't know what they are doing yet.
But... last year, NDM slipped up.
The way to dig a hole
hasn't changed much in the last how many millions of years Earth has
been around. Whether you believe that some cosmic happenstance
occurred or a divine creation, the physical facts all remain the
same. When you dig for Gold, you make a mess.
In
reality, a open pit mine looks like this... only Pebble will be twice
the size of this one...
The
Pebble Partnership has plans and they have a good idea of what the
final scenario will look like. Here's some key points of their
non-existent plan from their non-existent plan. From Pebble Draft 1 above it shows a massive tailings pool 1500 feet from the Koktuli River. It's also about 500 feet above the river as well.
Above
is Pebble Draft 2. The mill is the yellow on the map with the open
pit being the rounded area delineated to the right or East and the
orange area (tailings beach) to the left or West is the Option 2
tailings storage facility. The tailings area will average about
4000 feet across and up to a mile in some spots.
Below
is the mill site for Pebble Draft 2, where the ore separation and
processing will occur. The drawings indicate that the final open pit
will be about a mile across at it's longest. The pipe line shown by
the red line will then pump waste material uphill about 250-300 feet.
The Tailings Damn...
Above
is a cross section of the earthen damn that will be built in what is
shown as 16 stages. The last stage also shows that they are planning
to have a “beach” across the front of the containment wall. In
some place the drawings show that the exposed beach maybe over 300
feet wide. Exposing the waste rock to air in a disturbed manner
such as this will create air pollution. The area where this mine is
being planned is already 1000 feat above sea level and very windy.
Increasing arid conditions across the open storage of toxins is not
acceptable. These toxins and heavy metals can be moved from place to
place through evaporation and wind.
Above
is the Pebble Project Geochemical Data Graph. The purpose of this
graph is to show the project partners what the resources chemical
properties are. The data indicates that a majority of the samplings
across the prospected area will produce waste acids when they are put
though the milling process.
The
'discussion' plans that are driving the decisions in London show that
they really do want to built a giant waste pond over a thousand feet
above sea level in the valley of an old mountain range. Right where
the headwaters of Bristol Bay spring out. The waters here are all
connected and Pebble Partnership's own data has shown this. But they
persist on with the encouragement of our state government. They have
known this for awhile and so has the State of Alaska. Now it's time
that We The People use our powers as clearly explained in the Alaska
State Constitution and show that It's our government and We Vote Fish
over Gold in Bristol Bay. We vote a sustainable American resource
over drill and dig for foreign profits.