Pebble Mine

Plans for the world's largest open pit mine threaten to scarify a pristine part of America's public land

Alaska's Bristol Bay contains the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery, and is famed for iconic runs of chum salmon, silver salmon and king salmon.

But now, after being untouched for over three decades, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan developed by the Bush administration threatens to destroy this thriving and important ecosystem.

The plan, which awaits approval from Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, will open up 98% of its waters and 100% of its rivers to devastating hard rock mining.

If completed, the highly controversial Pebble Mine will be the world's largest open pit mine. It will no doubt mutilate the natural landscape and decimate wild animal habitats throughout Bristol Bay in the search for precious metals such as copper and gold.

Pebble Mine would require the creation of many miles of roads and bridges in an area that is currently wild.

The waste material created by the mine would be stored in two huge artificial lakes behind massive dams, one of which will be over four miles long.

The bay is "a world-class natural gem and worthy of our reverence and protection," said Cindy Shogan, the Executive Director of the Alaska Wilderness League, in a recent public statement.

"BLM's plan will create a development rush in Bristol Bay that will surely be disastrous," said Shogan, "carving a potentially massive mining district out of what is currently roadless wilderness and even opening the door for more oil drilling."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an Alaska Wilderness League letter urging Secretary Salazar to not sign the plan and protect public lands from destructive mining
  

RELATED POSTS

• The Destruction of Mining (August 27, 2009)
• Mining for Answers in the Philippines (April 6, 2008)
• More Than Four Decades Later, A Portuguese Mine Still Pollutes (February 17, 2009)
• Selling the Arctic's Future to the Oil Industry (March 6, 2009)
• Happy Birthday TR, and Thanks (October 27, 2009)
• Closing Off the Arctic (July 23, 2009)
• Appalachian Mountains Get A Breather (April 12, 2009)
• What Is Clean Coal? (February 28, 2009)
• Ecuador Grants Rights to "Mother Earth" (October 3, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: Polar Transcendentalism (May 11, 2009)

image: echoforsberg