Print 
Single Page
Enlarge This Image
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pebble Mine: Why the fight isn't overAfter the ballots had been counted last week and it appeared voters of the Lake and Peninsula Borough had narrowly approved a controversial anti-mining initiative, the look on Bob Gillam's lawyer's face said it all; they had their lunch eaten. Even though the measure passed, and even though Gillam appeared to be rewarded for his half-million-dollar campaign investment, the narrow 34-vote win represented a huge loss for Gillam and his anti-mining crusade and a huge win for the Pebble Partnership. Given the years of fearmongering fueled by Gillam's millions, this was a deck clearly stacked in his favor. The initiative, which gives the Lake and Peninsula Borough veto power over development on state lands in an attempt to prevent a prospective mine in the borough, has been the epicenter of an intense debate in Southwest Alaska. For the last four years the opponents of the mine, bankrolled by Gillam's wealth, have tried desperately to derail the mine from getting to the permitting stage. Before the mine would be given the green light to proceed with development, it must run the gauntlet of passing the strict guidelines of federal clean air and water laws, and a variety of other state and federal laws. Aside from Gillam's blatant self-serving interests, the danger of what he is doing to stop this project before it gets to the state's rigorous permitting process would make a mockery out of Alaska's ability to develop state lands. The land that Pebble sits on has been designated as state mining land for decades. Attempting to halt this process, by ignoring the land use designation, the expense companies incur to get to the permitting process and the stringent permitting process itself, would create a precedent of uncertainty for potential developers of Alaska's resources. After all, why invest in a prospective project if some rich guy is going to spend millions distilling fear and loathing about your organization and employees, and eventually shut down a completely legitimate public process? Gillam has been quoted as saying that the jobs, income and improvements won't be worth it because everyone and everything in the region will be eradicated. He predicts miners will be running wild in local villages with booze, drugs and associated mayhem. The ballot initiative, which was titled Save Our Salmon, was anticipated to win in a route. Gillam touted that 80 peercent of residents in the region opposed Pebble Mine, and he invested almost $500,000 of his money to fund the effort. Instead, after the first three hundred votes, the tally was basically tied. In the end, the winning margin of less than three dozen votes was a sobering reminder to Gillam that The Beatles were right; money can't buy you love. In addition to cash, Gillam enlisted the support of a well-respected religious leader, Archpriest Micheal Oleksa. During the campaign Oleksa appeared on advertisements decrying the potential Pebble Mine as sacrilegious. However, the enlistment of Father Oleksa wasn't without controversy. In an email circulated by local residents, Oleksa can be read telling his superior that helping Gillam could be a windfall for the church. "I also foresee that, if we remain in close association with Mr. Gillam and we want, let us suppose, to build a church in Anchorage, he would loan us the funds at a very low interest rate and would donate generously to our project. Perhaps we could interest him in buying some land for us, or supporting an assisted living complex for our elders." He describes Gillam as a "billionaire" who owns "eight airplanes, several homes and millions of dollars in stock ... a real Madoff." It's richly ironic Oleksa would invoke the name of the most infamous financial fraud artist in the world to describe Gillam, given the controversy surrounding Gillam's checkered past in Alaska's banking industry.
Kudos to Andy Halcro for informing the public about who's really behind the anti-Pebble campaign. Considering the penchant of anti-Pebble folks to engage in hysterical, misleading attacks (see comments below) on the proposed project and anyone who even hints of neutrality toward it, writing a piece like this takes courage. So Andrew Halcro owns Avis Car Rentals in Alaska huh? If he's going to support ruining my fishing in Bristol Bay, I'll support a boycott to his company. EVERYONE PLEASE BOYCOTT AVIS CAR RENTALS OWNED BY ANDREW HALCRO in Alaska. You're an idiot. Don't be misled by Bob Gillam's PR minions. Pebble will not destroy Bristol Bay. Even a (god forbid) worst case scenario wouldn't destroy all of Bristol Bay - a huge salmon habitat fed by dozens of salmon-spawning rivers and streams. Foreign company with world's largest earthen dam holding back millions of gallons of toxic waste in primo AK earthquake territory - you do the math. Halcro, am very disappointed to see you promoting such a disaster. How do you know Pebble would have the world's largest earthen dam? The project doesn't exist, no plan has been submitted, and the company is still exploring the site to see if it's worthwhile. Talk of the largest dam in the world is nonsense. The power demands of the Pebble mine would drive electrical cost up dramatically for South Central Alaskan residents. South Central is already having production challenges. If demand for power doubles so can the price of electricity. Just look at what happened in Fairbanks where the Fort Knox mine began drawing around half of the power produced locally. The local residents went from around 11 cents a KW hour to over 22 cents a KW hr. Golden Valley Electric had put in a diesel fired plant in North Pole to keep up with demand.... burning very expensive fuel. The affect is: the large power demands of these mega-mines can and will cause local people to subsidize them with much higher energy costs. The people in Fairbanks collectively are contributing millions of dollars to Kinross Gold Corporation in Toronto, Ontario shareholders. The bottom line is: Alaska drives little tax benefit, yet incurs very expensive administrative over sight costs. Mega-mines are not economically viable for Alaskans in general, and especially Alaskans that live locally to the mines. The few people that work for the mines does not off set the finical burden to the local economy, and the State of Alaska. The propionates mea-mines would have the State of Alaska subsidize gas distribution, and other infrastructure and expense. The few Alaskans making big money on these projects are not worth the fiscal, and environmental cost to all other Alaskans. The biggest beneficiary of Mega-mines are the foreign Corporations and their share holders, not Alaskan economics and people. There will be no Southcentral residents left to use that electrical grid once the Pipeline drops below capacity, the state's oil wealth runs dry, and there are no other mineral extraction sources of revenue to turn to. I would Love to see Mr. Halcro elaborate on the "stringent state permitting process"... Painting Gilliam as the lone general in this fight is both ignorant and naive. This has been a grass roots fight since the beginning. Gilliam might lead his own cavalry but he is by no means the leader of the "opposition" You can't stop the power of the people and the power of the people won't stop! Anyway you slice it up. Pebble Mine does not make sense. The only thing they can tout are a few temporary jobs that put thousands more permanent renewable jobs at risk. The state gets less than 1% of revenue from Pebble. The rest gets exported to foreign countries. And what do we risk? 60 million salmon. Every year. Only an idiot or someone making money directly from Pebble would think that is a good deal. What is your basis for claiming the state would only get less than 1% of the revenue? Can you back this up? Those emails were private and ill-gotten LEAKED emails. Shame on you for printing them. AGAIN. As for the Save Our Salmon initiative, 20 pro Save Our Salmon ballots were challenged and not counted. Another 90 ballots were excluded. Had those ballots been counted, the % would have been 60% to 40%. But, in the end whether it was a shellacking or a close vote, the People in the area spoke and Pebble LOST! It appears the Alaska Dispatch is on an all-out media campaign in favor of the Pebble Mine. From paid reporters to failed politicians, the diatribes use every "fear-mongering" tactic and vocabulary to denigrate those who oppose the destroyers of the land, water, and air of Southwest Alaska. Halcro and his fellow politicians have never let the Alaska Constitution get in the way of maximum fealty to the Oil Monopoly since 1977 as demonstrated by the final adjudication of the minimal few legislative, criminal, Constitution "violators" while the majority similar long-time "violators"returned to their millionaire, oil-funded mansions with a sigh of relief. What was funniest was a vote sent in from Swizzerlandy! Tempest in a Teapot from Gilliam..... No local input and control for large development projects that may destroy a multi-generational way of life is much more a crime. Halcro, you're a boob. ~~~ THE PEBBLE PRIZE ~~~ I propose: If any mining-engineering company can accomplish the task of cleaning up the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, then they are considered to be skilled enough to operate the Pebble Mining Project... CLEAN UP FUKUSHIMA FIRST !! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster Dr. Helen Caldicott.... http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fukushima+explosion&aq=f http://www.fairewinds.com/ http://enenews.com/ http://cerea.enpc.fr/en/fukushima.html http://www.rense.com/general94/secbb.htm http://www.elenafilatova.com/ Chernobyl had 180 tons of uranium fuel-rods in the damaged reactor.. This opinion piece does not rise to the standard of the Dispatch, and I’m surprised you would even allow it to be published. It’s nothing but an ad hominem attack on Gillam. I’m also surprised that Halcro, whom I previously respected, has descended to this level. Do I detect a bit of jealousy that Halcro, with all his family’s money, hasn’t been able to win any major seat in years while Gillam, on his first try, scored a major win on this initiative? What's that smell? Oh yeah, right, that's the smell of sour grapes, with a splash of misdirection (it is after all Mr. Gillam's money that's at issue here, not Mr. Halcro's, right?) to give it that extra special fetid acid stink. You lost, Bob. If all your our money couldn't buy you a borough and you can only boast a 34 vote win with just over half of the potential voters even turning in ballots, well, even you have to admit that's a pretty poor ROI. And as for "ad hominem attack", well, I admit I had to look that one up. The definition seems to read something like "Common tactic of an angry pot calling kettle that had the temerity to speak black". |
Comments