Northern Dynasty's proposed Pebble mine, located north of Lake Iliamna, would be a Goliath of a mine. It would sit in the cradle of the Bristol Bay fisheries and in the heart of Alaska's premier recreational lands. If developed, it will be an environmental disaster.

I'm not a hard-core environmentalist. I've been to the North Slope and I've seen the oilfields. I support oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and I support responsible logging.

But I am adamantly opposed to the Pebble mine because during the 20 years that I lived in Montana, 1982-2002, I witnessed the abysmal legacy of large open-pit gold mines and some of the Canadian companies that owned them. Alaska is poised to repeat that legacy and, frankly, I'm terrified.

Let's not get swept up in the hysteria of a modern-day gold rush. Gold is a much less critical resource than oil or timber. There is no impending gold shortage. If gold prices increase markedly, the average citizen won't even notice. Given that fact, you might expect that we would hold open-pit mines to a higher level of environmental standards.

Not so. The Environmental Protection Agency has labeled the hard-rock mining industry as the largest source of pollution in the United States. The oil and timber industries would never be allowed to create a massive, gaping chasm in the earth, and then, when operations shut down, simply leave that gigantic hole open, forever.

As appalling as that may be, the biggest danger to the Iliamna region is the massive volume of ore "tailings" from a mine of this size. When rainwater and snowmelt filter down through mine tailings, it washes heavy metals into surface and groundwater, rendering streams nearly sterile, and severely retarding fish reproduction.

If Northern Dynasty processes its projected volume of 200,000 tons of ore per day for 20 years, that would create 1.5 billion tons of tailings. Don't be hoodwinked by soothing scientific jargon like Montanans were. There is absolutely no way that anyone can reliably prevent those heavy metals from washing in to the Iliamna and Mulchatna drainages, and downstream to Bristol Bay. That pollution will continue as the decades grow into another century.

If Alaskans are gullible and greedy enough to believe that one of the largest open-pit mines in North America can be developed in an exquisitely sensitive environment like Iliamna, then we are doomed to repeat the sad and terrible legacy of previous open-pit mines, whose massive, ugly skeletons lie scattered across the western United States, where they will continue to disfigure the landscape and pollute the water long after we are all gone.

A few decades hence, when the population of the United States has increased by half, and the population of Alaska has doubled, the demand for pristine fisheries and recreation will be unlimited. Will your grandchildren look at the titanic corpse of the abandoned Pebble mine and ask, "How could anyone have allowed such devastation?"

Dr. Raymond Fowler practices anesthesia at South Peninsula Hospital in Homer and Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage. He is an avid fisherman, hunter and private pilot, and makes his home in Homer.