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DEADLINE FOR COMMENTS
ON THE PROPOSED NEW MIXING ZONE RULE - DECEMBER 19, 2005 !

Murkowski risks salmon for gold mine
Anchorage Daily News, December 1, 2005
Comment - Alan Boraas

A proposal by the Murkowski administration would allow the dumping of
untreated effluent (sewage, tailings, etc.) into Alaska's salmon streams at
the discretion of the state. So far that's been illegal, but this will
change if the so-called mixing zones proposal becomes policy.

Previous efforts to permit mixing zones have met with resistance from an
unlikely alliance of commercial, subsistence and sportfishing groups. In
addition the Kenai Peninsula, Lake and Peninsula, and Ketchikan Gateway
boroughs, none of which are exactly radical environmentalist camps, among
others have gone on record opposing mixing zones.

So, who's behind the push to create mixing zones that nobody seems to be
taking credit for? According to a Daily News article, Bob Shavelson of Cook
Inlet Keeper points to Northern Dynasty's giant Pebble Mine as the likely
beneficiary of such a policy change.

The Pebble Mine and its neighboring "Big Chunk" have been quietly
progressing toward obtaining the permits necessary to extract gold, copper
and molybdenum from Alaska. Their plan is to pulverize rock from open-pit
mines within an area two-thirds the size of the Kenai Peninsula north of
Lake Iliamna. Then they will extract the gold with cyanide and truck the ore
over the Chigmit Mountains to Cook Inlet where it will be shipped to Asia
for processing. If all goes as planned, you might be able to get a sweet
deal at Wal-Mart on a ring made in China from Alaska gold.

But Northern Dynasty has a significant problem.

The Pebble Mine sits smack on a divide that drains west toward the Nushagak
River via the Koktuli, southeast toward Lake Iliamna and northeast toward
Lake Clark via the Chulitna. Unlike other major mines in the state that
operate in nonanadromous areas, the Pebble complex would potentially affect
the headwaters of the largest run of wild salmon in the world. Northern
Dynasty intends to retain in perpetuity the toxic materials exposed from
pulverizing the mountains behind a huge holding dam built to prevent
contamination. If the law were changed as proposed by the Murkowski
administration to permit pollution of salmon streams, the Pebble Mine
operators would be absolved of responsibility if a breach of the holding dam
were to occur because of a volcanic eruption, earthquake or human error.
Critics believe such a breach is inevitable. Mine owners are aware even a
small release of contamination could bankrupt the operation under present
law. So the mine would be a huge beneficiary of the proposed mixing zone
regulation.

On their Web sites Northern Dynasty and its major financier, Galahad Gold of
London, woo hedge-fund investors to the Pebble project boasting the mine
would operate in a "politically friendly" environment. Apparently they are
referring to the Murkowski administration, and the mixing zone proposal is
evidence of significant friendliness. Unlike the hard line the Egan, Hickel
and Hammond administrations took toward corporate responsibility of Alaska's
environment, the Murkowski mixing zone proposal would downgrade protection
of the single most important renewable resource the state has.

Not all jurisdictions in Alaska are all that "politically friendly" to the
mine. The indigenous people of the area most impacted by the Pebble project,
the people of Nondalton, Iliamna, Pedro Bay and Newhalen, have gone on
record as against the mine through actions of their village councils. As
long as Gov. Frank Murkowski is in office, the mine developers apparently
believe the environmental obstacles can be overcome through administrative
actions such as the mixing zone proposal accompanied by an aggressive public
relations campaign. But indigenous resistance may be the mine's Waterloo. In
plywood-and-tin community halls, feisty little village councils are taking
on the financial giants of the world's mining industry and their friends in
Juneau. Make no mistake, most rural Alaskans would welcome the jobs. But
they have determined the trade-off is too costly if mining development means
dirty water in their salmon streams, noise and traffic running off the
caribou, dust in the air and a four-mile-long holding dam full of toxic
metals waiting for the next earthquake.

If you don't mind a few floaters in your salmon streams and a little mercury
in your wild salmon, you'll want to support the Murkowski administrations
mixing zone proposal. If not, you have until Dec. 19 to comment (emphasis added).

Alan Boraas is a professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College.

For more information, please also see the Anchorage Daily News Staff OpEd article opposing the Mixing Zone proposed rule.

Note: DEADLINE FOR COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED NEW MIXING ZONE RULE - DECEMBER 19, 2005 ! [ CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION ]