Pits in the Crown Jewels

Even if the toxic waste could somehow be contained forever, the mine might still destroy Alaska's wild commercial salmon industry, whose image depends on a pristine Bristol Bay watershed. The mere suggestion of toxic contamination could make wild salmon uncompetitive with less expensive and non-seasonal farmed fish. In fact, salmon farmers can scarcely contain their glee over the impending damage to the Wild Alaska Salmon brand. Their industry association--Washington Fishgrowers--has even taken to plastering its Web site with banners announcing that "a massive open-pit gold mine, proposed upstream from Alaska's most productive sockeye salmon waters, could undercut the reputation for purity that has become wild salmon's key selling point."

Northern Dynasty, whose behavior is standard for the industry, is not the problem. The problem is that federal and state hardrock mining regulations (especially Alaska's) are lax and antiquated, designed for 19th century prospectors. It used to be that when you developed a mine in Alaska you had to put up a bond so that taxpayers wouldn't get stuck with the entire job of cleaning up your mess if you went bust. But two years ago the mining industry wrote a law for itself called the "corporate guarantee" which excuses companies from posting bond and instead requires a small token payment and a gentleman's agreement. Hardrock miners help themselves to the public resource basically for free, paying state royalties of less than one cent per dollar's worth of mineral extracted. (By contrast the oil industry must pay 20 cents on the dollar.) As a result Alaska's regulatory agencies are strapped for cash. But they've come up with a Mr. Bean-style solution: Allow the companies that require regulation to pay the state officials who regulate them, a cozy arrangement that has spawned the mine regulators' shibboleth of "Sure; go ahead." Mother Jones Magazine reports that Northern Dynasty has signed a legal memorandum pledging to contribute to the salaries of 13 state employees who oversee the permitting process and that, by the time the mine is completed, it will have shelled out $700,000 to hire its own regulators. Then, to see if the mine meets federal muster, the US Environmental Protection Agency will consult the state regulators paid by Northern Dynasty.

Most states allow "mixing zones" in which industrial and municipal waste can be dumped into lakes and rivers, provided the resulting cocktail doesn't get too potent. At this writing Alaska is a notable exception, but Governor Frank Murkowski and the mining industry are working feverishly to fix this. Indeed, the future of hardrock mining in the Bristol Bay area is largely dependent on mixing zones. Northern Dynasty promises that it will contain all its waste, but even if its word meant something and even if containment were possible in the Ring of Fire, the company that purchases the site won't be bound by any commitment mouthed by Northern Dynasty.

It is hard to imagine something more hideous than this proposal for the heart of America's holy water. The 2.5-mile-wide, 1,700-foot-deep crater would be the biggest open-pit mine on the continent. The 20-square-mile toxic-waste lagoon would supposedly be contained by an artificial mountain, 750 feet high and half a mile wide at the base, wedged between two real ones. But Scott Brennan, campaign director for Alaskans for Responsible Mining, says the Pebble Mine could be just a subtle hint of things to come.

"The site only accounts for about ten percent of the mining claims that have been staked out there on state land," Brennan told me. "And around that land the US Bureau of Land Management plans to open up millions of its acres currently closed to mining. In the long term, that's an even greater threat to the integrity of the fishery." At least eight other mining companies have staked claims in the Bristol Bay area, and they are intently watching what happens on the Pebble site. If Northern Dynasty gets a green light, they'll move in, too.

Former pro hockey player Brian Kraft, who owns the Alaska Sportsman's Lodge on the Kvichak River four miles down from the lake, is especially irked by the mantra from closet mine proponents that goes like this: "I'm waiting for the facts to come out in the Environmental Impact Statement before I make any judgments." "My question," says Kraft, "is what facts will come out that are going to show this project can be done in one of the most environmentally sensitive areas on earth? An EIS is a procedural process; it doesn't tell anyone if a mine will or won't contaminate. Water will have to be treated forever. There are right places and wrong places for mines, and this is the wrong place."

Tim Bristol, Trout Unlimited's Alaska program director who four years ago put me on some gorgeous Tongass National Forest steelhead, told me this: "One thing that hasn't been talked about is the influx of people. It's a sparsely populated country. The workers will hunt and fish; that puts a lot more pressure on the resource, too. And all the access concerns folks more than the mine itself--a 100-mile road from the west side of Cook Inlet, along the western shore of Lake Illiamna, to the Pebble deposit. On the one hand Northern Dynasty is saying, 'Wait and see. We haven't applied for permits. You really need to reserve judgment.' But on the other, they're passing judgment themselves, proclaiming that there's never going to be any impact on fish. I think it's a two-way street when it comes to 'wait and see.' This is a bad place for a mine, especially this kind of a mine. Frankly, based on history of the mining industry, I don't want to wait and see."

Nor do I. We lack the space here for any comprehensive history of this sort of mining, but here are five typical examples:

Red Dog zinc and lead mine, northwest Alaska, still in operation. Zinc contamination reached 600 times the health standard. Operator Teck Cominco has been cited for 134 separate permit violations. Five years ago the National Park Service reported concentrations of toxic metals along the haul road as high as the most polluted industrial sites in Eastern Europe. Despite estimates that reclamation and water treatment will cost $100 million, the company has posted a bond of only $11 million.

Zortman-Landusky gold and silver mine, north-central Montana. Extensive surface and groundwater contamination. More than a dozen cyanide-waste spills, including 52,000 gallons that poisoned drinking water supplies. (A mine employee reported the spill after he detected the smell of cyanide in his home tap water.) Serious acid drainage to aquatic habitat occurred when sulfide ores were extracted. In 1998 Zortman-Landusky Mines filed for bankruptcy, sticking taxpayers with $33 million in reclamation costs. Effluent treatment will be required in perpetuity.