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Southwest Alaska votes against Pebble MineResidents who live in Lake and Peninsula Borough in Southwest Alaska voted for a ballot initiative targeted against the Pebble gold and copper mine. More than 600 ballots were cast, which the borough said was about a 57 percent turn-out. The vote was close. As it stood Monday evening, 280 had voted for the initiative, 246 voted against it and 17 ballots were contested. The ballots were mailed last month throughout the Lake and Peninsula Borough, an area of about 1600 people spread out over a region roughly the size of West Virginia. It will give local areas control over the mine's permitting process. The mine's future rests in obtaining dozens of permits. If the initiative is held up in court, permits could not be granted for any large-scale resource extraction activity-- including building roads and bridges that would assist in such extraction -- that would impact salmon-producing streams. The initiative was organized by a group called Save Our Salmon, who opposes the mine, and was largely funded by Alaska resident Bob Gillam, one of Alaska's wealthiest residents who owns a private lodge in the area. Pebble Limited Partnership – a partnership between Northern Dynasty Minerals and Anglo American PLC – has for years been eyeing a deposit that sits several miles from a couple of rural villages. It's the biggest undeveloped gold and copper deposit in the world, according to the geologists working to bring online a Pebble mine. It happens to be in the Bristol Bay watershed -- one of the largest commercial fisheries in the world. Critics say that if built, its prized salmon fishery downstream from the deposit would possibly be decimated. Proponents say a future Pebble mine would bring economic development to an impoverished region; that the ore can be mined responsibly and without impacting Bristol Bay's salmon or Pacific herring populations. In a statement tonight, Pebble Partnership called the ordinance "ill conceived," and said that the change in the code is "not legal." "Voters in the Lake and Peninsula Borough have been subjected to a prolonged advertising campaign of fear-mongering and misinformation about the Pebble project," the statement said. Indeed, residents in the region have been the center of a huge campaign over the mine. It's pitted villager against villager, pro-development groups against environmental groups and other "grassroots efforts" funded by Gillam. One of the most powerful churches in rural Alaska, the Orthodox Church, has tumbled into the debate. One thing’s certain: this is not the last word on the mine. The Alaska Department of Law, which filed a brief in support of Pebble’s quest to keep the initiative off the ballot by claiming the effort violated the state’s constitution, will appeal the vote, as will the Pebble Partnership. "The State of Alaska has stated that this ordinance is unenforceable as a matter of law and will not withstand the legal challenge that continues in Alaska’s Superior court next month," Pebble's statement said. "We agree and will continue our legal challenge for the reasons we have stated throughout this process." The Alaska Superior Court will take up the constitutional issues on Nov. 7. On the other side, Robert Redford and other activists have taken the issue nationally. This vote will bolster their public relations efforts. Politicians have also begun to take note. Washington state's U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell recently wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency's administrator urging the agency to block permitting if the EPA finds that harm might be done to the salmon. She called the salmon runs “economic lynchpins” for commercial fishermen not just in Alaska but also in Washington. In 2010, 538 Washington residents held drift gillnet and set gillnet commercial salmon fishing licenses in Bristol Bay, off of which they made a total gross estimated earnings of about $60 million.
What astute comments on the mine...and we all know Jesus Christ had a hard time too! Not exactly a resounding triumph. It is a good sign that not everyone in the Lake & Bob Gillam Borough is willing to blindly trade their children's future for a turkey and a new church. NIMBY campaigns can be effective, if done well. They can easily be duds, too. It seems a mite far-fetched, that Pebble threatens the fishery. Wut? They will pump fuming mine effluent into the river? Prolly not, huh? Bob Gillam is getting $4,000,000 worth of publicity & promotion for his resort, from his $400,000 support for Save Our Salmon. It's a win-win for him, whatever happens at Pebble. This is not the 1870s, or the 1970s. The efforts to insinuate that mining cannot go ahead in the Bristol Bay watershed without - "Duh!" - damaging the salmon resource are borderline corny. The legit questions about Pebble are in the Fruminous-Slackjaw comments below: Alaska should get more from what it owns ... and it should make a priority of being as good a steward of what it has, as possible. Extraction should yield benefits ... like your kids' & grandkids' college education hangs on doing it smart. I was expecting a landslide against Pebble given all the money Bob Gillam was throwing against the mine. Instead only 34 votes separated the for and against positions. The vote probably will not matter as the courts will almost certainly have to disallow it (local communities have no jurisdiction over a state-owned resource issue - and Pebble is a state-owned resource). Personally, I have not been so much concerned about the effects on fish as I have been about the answer to this question: Just what will the state get in return for leasing out the most valuable mineral tract in its inventory. The answer is: Almost $0. Again, the leadership of our state is giving away Alaska's natural resources to non-Alaskan companies - in this case Canadian companies. Alaskans will get a some jobs and that is good. But the State will have to foot the bill for the education costs of the miners' children and a host of other social and infrastructure expenses. For this reason, I am in favor of keeping the gold and copper in the ground until we can get a much better deal. Even in backwards Mongolia, the government there is getting royalties and taxes worth 34% of the value of its minerals. Me too. $400,000 and he barely bought the election. I'd say this is more proof the mine needs to go forward. Its an even split. I agree we need to get more for our resource. Our inept legislature should look at mineral royalties with prices at near-all time high levels. However, we shouldn't do another ACES debacle. We should get something, but 34% is a bit excessive. Taxes discourage investment so it'd have to be at an expectable level. This vote won't matter, as it will get thrown out. Then we'll hear all the whining about the will of the voters. |
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