Speaking of Pebble Mine, [View all]

[Blue_In_AK]

Paul Begala was up here last week and has written this great opinion piece for CNN http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/29/opinion/begala-salmon-pebble-mine/index.html?iref=allsearch

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Salmon is the focal point of so much of the economy in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Salmon contribute $1.5 billion annually and 14,000 jobs to the region's economy. For good reason, the Chinook Salmon is the state fish of Alaska.

And yet this magnificent, abundant, nutritious, valuable resource is threatened. A partnership between two companies -- London-based Anglo American, which has a spotty environmental record and Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty -- wants to build one of the world's largest mines to extract copper, gold and molybdenum at the headwaters of two of the most significant rivers in Bristol Bay.

Anglo American says it is committed to a goal of minimizing "any impact to the local environment by designing, operating and closing all of our operations in an environmentally responsible manner."

But the mammoth Pebble Mine would, according to an exhaustive review conducted by the EPA, destroy up to 90 miles of streams and as much as nearly 5,000 acres of wetlands right smack-dab in the middle of one of the largest, most productive and most valuable sockeye fisheries on earth.

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