Seen enough? Say no to Pebble mine
COMPASS: POINTS OF VIEW FROM THE COMMUNITY

By TIM BRISTOL

Published: October 23, 2006
Anchorage Daily News

Northern Dynasty has asked Alaskans to "wait and see" before making a decision to support or oppose its proposed Pebble open pit mine in the Bristol Bay region. Now the waiting's over and it's hard to imagine that anyone who cares about wild Bristol Bay salmon likes what they see.

Northern Dynasty has filed 11 applications, with thousands of pages, to take the surface and groundwater of three rivers and construct five earthen dams to create two tailings lakes.

Incredibly, two of the proposed dams could become the largest in the world.

Currently, the world's largest dam is the Three Gorges Dam in China -- 1.4 miles long, 607 feet high, and constructed of concrete. But according to documents filed with the state, over time two of Dynasty's dams would merge to become one -- stretching 4.3 miles and standing 740 feet high. A third proposed dam would be 2.9 miles long and 700 feet high.

The two impoundments would flood 6.5 and 3.6 square miles of surrounding land respectively. They would be filled with a toxic, acidic soup of tailings mixed with water withdrawn from nearby rivers.

Pebble would actually produce two sorts of tailings. Three percent to 5 percent would be "reactive" and stored in these massive lakes. These reactive tailings must be covered with water in order to avoid oxidation, which leads to the creation of sulfuric acid.

The other 95 percent to 97 percent of the tailings would be "bulk tailings" piled on the ground and formed into miles of "beaches" (Dynasty's word) surrounding the lakes. To get an idea, in 1993, when the Pebble plan was one-third as large as what Dynasty now envisions, public officials said the bulk tailings containment area would be 8 miles by 2 miles by hundreds of feet deep.

The applications describe bulk tailings as "silt-sized particles." Dynasty would spray water on the silt "beaches" to keep them from blowing away. Cold, wind, rain, snow and seismic activity will likely make this idea, which may look OK on paper, much harder to pull off in the real, rugged world of Southwest Alaska.

Also keep in mind Pebble is mainly a copper mine. More than any element, copper disrupts the ability of salmon to find natal streams. Copper will be in the dust, from the pit, tailings and roads. Ten thousand years of genetic separation of hundreds of the world's most valuable salmon stocks could be at risk.

And Dynasty proposes huge pipelines. Thirteen miles of 54-inch-diameter pipe will discharge a slurry of bulk tailings to make "beaches" and discharge reactive tailings into the lakes. A 3-mile, 54-inch pipe will retrieve water from them to the mill. A 100-mile, smaller-diameter pipe will carry ore concentrate in slurry to a port on Cook Inlet and a parallel pipe will return the water. Imagine a 54-inch pipe gushing silt to make miles of beaches surrounding toxic and acidic lakes behind miles of dams hundreds of feet high. The picture is barren, cold and sterile.

Finally, the applications asked Dynasty whether it intends to use a sewage system, or dispose of sewage solids or sludge. In July, Dynasty checked "yes." In September, Dynasty changed the answer to "no." What is Dynasty thinking? It says roughly 2,000 people would be needed to build the mine and 1,000 would operate it. It's safe to say that, eventually, each and every one of these people would need a bathroom break.

The fact is sewage treatment requires federal permits. Checking the yes box triggers a federal environmental-impact statement on the whole project now instead of later. It seems Dynasty will do what it can to avoid coming clean with Alaskans -- even on the subject of sewage -- if it will help it perpetuate its "wait and see" piecemeal approach to information disclosure.

Alaskans have waited long enough, and they've seen enough. Now is the time to reject the Pebble mine.