Eric Fjelstad and Bill Jeffress wrote that “interests are … advocating that Alaska’s resources should stay in the ground …” They imply that “Alaska’s resources” only include Big Industry’s goals — oil, gas, and minerals. Not true! For many Alaskans, our resources also include clean water, healthy fish stocks, caribou and other wildlife, even forests and tundra — and the economies and cultures that depend on them. Industrial development can coexist in some places with renewable resources and local economies — if permit issuers care about these things.
Fjelstad and Jeffress think no one should complain that “the EIS … did not fully address the impacts of the project.” But developers do omit major information about impacts on people and the environment. Two examples from Pebble’s permit application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: They propose to store toxic mine waste safely underwater in their post-production pit lake — but actually, such lakes are a brew of strong acid and toxic metals, because their water is mixed and oxidized by wind. Examples are in Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Australia and Europe. Secondly, Pebble’s socioeconomic studies in the Nushagak Bay area (downstream from the mine site) were never finished — yet this part of Bristol Bay had the healthiest salmon runs, commercial fishing and sport-fishing businesses in 2017!
Another half-truth from industry: David Prum wrote “Why the Ambler road makes sense.” This road would “make sense” only if a mine was already permitted in the Ambler district. That mine would leave behind a lake like Pebble’s — full of sulfuric acid and toxic metals. Let’s wait until an EIS evaluates the hazards of mining before building a road to (possibly) nowhere.
- Vivian Mendenhall
Anchorage
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