Some call it the Pebble Mine project. I’m calling it the Pending Pebble Mine Disaster.

It’s the massive mine proposal that threatens the whole ecosystem of Bristol Bay with a cyanide leach mine, the toxic byproducts of which could contaminate one of the richest commercial fisheries on the planet — worth at least $450 million annually.

The LA Times ran a significant story on the project:

But if fish have made the region’s past and present fortune, the future sparkles with the promise of precious metal. Beneath the rolling tundra, straddling the headwaters of two of the watershed’s most productive rivers, a Canadian company has discovered North America’s biggest deposits of gold and copper, worth about $300 billion in today’s soaring commodities markets.

The dilemma is whether Alaskans will have to choose between the two — and whether the watershed, its fish and a host of other wildlife will be casualties of what could probably be one of the world’s biggest mines. The project would entail five earthen dams, of which two would be bigger than China’s Three Gorges Dam.

The size of the mines are staggering:

If the full resource were developed, as much as 12 billion tons of earth would be excavated and milled to extract the tiny flecks of metal: about 82 million ounces of gold, 67 billion pounds of copper and 4 billion pounds of molybdenum.

Ten square miles of impoundments would fill two valleys, to store in perpetuity more than 2.5 billion tons of waste rock and toxic residue.

Let’s be clear; these mines aren’t little holes in the ground. It’s real strip mining, where massive amounts of the earth are stripped away, processed with cyanide to remove the ore, and then dumped in valleys, with no hope of reclamation.

The cyanide process leaves tons of toxic waste behind — toxins that haven’t been kept out of the environment in previous mines.

Predictably, the mining company is spreading money around in an attempt to sway opinion (the same tactic Nestle’s using to recruit support up here), and is telling residents the mine and fish can coexist.

Northern Dynasty officials scoff at what they call an alarmist campaign. “We know Bristol Bay is a sensitive area,” said Sean Magee, vice president for public affairs. “But there’ve been tremendous changes in the mining industry in the past 25 years. These projects can be done safely now: Mining and fishing can coexist.”

It’s not as if he has a vested interest in saying that, and naturally, he can’t prove it.

In fact, a local tribal leader was flown in to see similar mining projects in Nevada, and this was his reaction:

Hobson has been a vocal opponent of the mine since the Renewable Resources Coalition flew him and other native leaders to see mines in Nevada. There, he said, they saw landscape that looked like it had been “bombed” — huge pits, contaminated water and depleted aquifers that have forced a local Indian tribe to truck in drinking water.

Once again, somebody wants to take a healthy ecosystem — one that’s feeding millions of people — and turn it into a cesspool. Keep in mind that more than a quarter of the USA’s wild salmon catch comes from Bristol, and that the salmon support a huge food chain.

If they go, most everything else does too.

[tags]pebble mine, bristol bay, mine, northern dynasty, salmon[/tags]

Posted in Environment, News.