Bruce Switzer

OPINION: The proposed Pebble mine is a comedic farce, but serious groundwork is being laid to squeeze cash out of the proposal one way or another.

Ballot Measure 4, "An Act to Protect Alaska's Clean Water," is focused on preventing the certain disaster threatening the world's largest salmon run -- the Pebble Mine. Nothing more, nothing less.

Of all the fictions peddled by opponents of the clean water initiatives and supporters of the Pebble mine, few are as fanciful as the fairy tale they flog about Red Dog Creek. According to them it was so naturally befouled that nothing could live in it, but now, thanks to mining, it so teems with trout a weir is required to prevent a fish infestation. Baloney.