Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Pebble/Chuitna projects

DP,

Just curious????? Have you read that Northern Dynasty is just setting up the project and a subsidiary will carry out the plans.......or that it's all ready been agreed that ND will NOT be responsible for any clean up costs.......I, too, will be interested in what science has to say, but, if in fact they"re(who?) waiting on these "scientific reports," then why is an enormous infrastructure all ready being put in place?????????? To be sure, a large mining conglomerate, wouldn't be putting the cart before the horse spending that kind of money, would they?

Joe

Now that's funny!

I'm far from a tree hugger, but I just can't see the huge environmental impact of this project offsetting the relativley minor fiscal gains to the state and local economies. Even without dams bursting and killing off the watersheds, they'll be permanently altering a huge area.

In today's adn - Bristol bay in 2006 produced 29.5 million salmon harvested, all species. The sockeye alone were worth $106 million, said value being more than one fourth of statewide salmon receipts, all species. Who votes to, without our input, let the beaurocrats chance screwing up nearly a third of our entire wild salmon resource (these prices will continue to escalate as the "Wild Alaska Salmon" marketing catches on).

Near as I can figure SWAG, Pebble should produce several trillion dollars (using today's values) gross receipts over its lifetime. Deduct expenses, and that's still a huge amount of spare change to leave lying around, so it probably won't be. It is also enough that they can afford to do it right, fairly compensate the state in royalties, and not leave another super-fund mess behind them. But they will only meet the minimum standards we set them, likely enough, so let's set those standards high enough that we are protected to the largest extent we can foresee.. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Taken on a dollar for dollar comparison over the life span of the mine, there is of course no comparison. Trillions of dollars (or tens of billions in state royalties and local wages) in non-renewable mineral products vs 10 billion (100 million times 100 years) in fisheries, no royalties paid. On the other hand, no one needs invest anything in the production of salmon out there - only in the harvest, management, and processing. If we don't screw them up, they should last indefinitely, or at least until Al Gore's Second Coming.

Interestingly enough, my wife was hunting signatures today and talked to a young man from McGrath. He wouldn't sign and indicated that his belief was that this Clean Water Initiative would ban two stroke outboards throughout Alaska because of the hydrocarbons entering the water. Be interesting to find out just how he came by that notion, wouldn't it?

DPhillips- there are plenty of facts out there on both sides for those who will search them out and see(filtering out the spin, if possible). There will of course be more forthcoming. My point is that trying to stop the juggernaut when it's on top of you is a little more difficult than starting as early as possible to mitigate the effects of being run over. Besides- what are you afraid of - these clean-water initiatives will have to go to the public for a vote a year from now, assuming enough signatures can be gathered in the next 7 weeks. Which I doubt- but raising the public's awareness is always a good thing- unless one is trying to screw them over somehow.

Here is the Pebble link

www.ndmpebblemine.com/ - 6k

here is another pebble related link:

http://www.alaskabackcountryhunters.org/Pebble%20Mine.htm

Agreed. The dams don't even have to break, cyanide has a way of leaching through substrate and magically showing up in the ground water. "Gee, wonder where that stuff came from??" is the usual question years later when it shows up.

Another huge hazard is simply exposing some of the trace minerals to the atmosphere by deep excavation that results in toxins being introduced. Sorry, I won't cozy up to the project.

I sat in on a few meeting with Pepple, and well I was doing some flying in the area . I was with another pilot, and his thoughts on it was, the locals and the state will let Pebble spend what ever they want for how long they want on survey's and what have you, and we will get maybe 5 good years of flying and they will go home. That was when Gold was maybe 425 an oz will gold it headed for 1000 bucks an OZ and copper is headed for 10 bucks a pound. Guess what that three to four trillion dollars worth of mineral they were talking about in 05 is now a good 15 maybe 20 and guess what they want it, the state wants it and well they are not going to leave it there. Maybe not now, just like ANWAR, at some point they will go get the oil were ever it is and the Gold and Minerals were ever they are. And if Pebble ever comes up with a deal like with oil and some kind of dividend divied out to every alaskan like they do with the Oil, I got news the the hell no's will stop for an extra 1200 bucks ever October. That is the sad part of it. Never mind its in the Greatest Wild Salmon / Trout fishery in the world. The deal I would to is take the Oil in Anwar, way less of a foot print, and leave Bristol Bay alone, and drill every where else where we know there is Oil and Gas. But like a lot of things I do not get to make the call.

"Can" does not mean "should". I am legally entitled to 55 "personal use" salmon, and two or three black bears each year - but I can only personally use about 15 salmon each year, and one bear every several years( I don't even have to keep the meat). Should I do something just because I legally can?

Let me put it another way. If you will let me crap on your dinner table every day for the next year, I promise I won't get any on the floor, and I'll clean up the table afterward. In return, I'll give you a lick of my ice cream cone every day. Even if you agree, is it really a good deal all around?



Incidentally, that red area (and some other) around the Pebble site is all staked by 8 other mining companies, who I am told, are ready to move should Northern Dynasty pop the cherry. That's about a thousand square miles of mines, on part of the Mulchatna Caribou herd's calving grounds (which incidentally, is about 25% of it's former, too-high numbers, and is showing a bad bull to cow ratio from over-hunting, apparently), and overlaps the headwaters not only of Kvichak drainage, but also of the Mulchatna which also drains into Bristol Bay, and the Chulitna, draining into Lake Clark.

With the Habitat Division under DNR instead of F&G where it belongs, thanks to Hankey-pankey Frankie, it is doubtful whether we will get honest criticism of any EIS done by Northern Dynasty. Tom Irwin is the head of DNR, and was high mucky-muck at Fort Knox Mine and other such projects for years, so we know where his interests (and expertise) is. Northern Dynasty's partner, Anglo-American, is a British Company who has raped and run mostly in African and other Third World countries to date. Makes me just a little suspicious of their motives and MO here. Factor in the degraded "mixing-zone" regulations (Hankey-pankey Frankey, again), I think there are some valid concerns here.

Why not wait until the permitting process "public comment" period? A mine out of Nome ( Rock Creek??- something like that) is a good example. The final permits were applied for, a 30 day comment period run through, and 5 weeks after the comment period closed the permits were approved. A done deal from well before the application paperwork was dry.

Several states have banned high-sulfide ore mining, including Montana, for cause.

And Alaska is going to start??????

fwiw,

Pebbles will not employ cyanide leaching. the metallogeny is comparable to Bingham Canyon in Utah, or the Duval Copper mine in Arizona. Generally, this means that ore will be ground to ~150# mesh and the copper minerals floated off. The primary agents used in the process are wetting agents (soap or detergent based), and pine oil as a flotation agent. The sulfide concentrate in terms of volume will be ~1% of the mill throughput, and will be shipped to copper smelters by sea.

Other than a fuel spill (picture the amount of deisel consumed to move 250,000 tonnes of rock every 24 hr period), there are two main environmental hazards represented by these types of operations;

First is a tailings dam failure. If Pebbles process's half of the reserves (you can never physically mine an entire deposit by open pit), there will be +3 billion tonnes of sulfide bearing rock, ground to #150 mesh, contained by one or more earthfill dams. These exist all over the world, and the likelyhood for failure can only be determined by the environment and design. At the scale Pebbles will be mined, the mine plan will likely employ a conventional dam, utilizing natural topography.

the second hazard is long term Acid Mine Drainage. The copper and iron sulfides oxidize and create sulfuric acid. This of course occurs naturally, but when you grind 3 billion tonnes of it up, you expose the sulfide grains to oxidation at an exponentially faster rate than would occur naturally. AMD will also come from the waste rock. To mine 3 billion tonnes of ore, Pebbles will also strip another 3-4 billion tonnes of waste rock, which will typically also contain iron +/- copper sulfides. The waste rock gets dumped and stacked, and will also accelerate the break-down into iron oxide and sulfuric acid. Modern mine design dictates that the AMD is pro-actively mitigated by mixing limestone into the waste dumps, as well as construction of limestone rock drains that all effluent has to pass through and be neutralized before leaving the mine area. That works in a perfect world, and looks good on paper.

When a company states that 'it can safely operate a mine', it means that they can meet current regulations, according to their engineers and consultants. Nothing more. The engineers and consultants all have errors and omissions insurance policies, not to mention they will be long retired or passed by the time many of the long term effects manifest themselves. You cannot model long term effects of mining, any more than you can model the long term effects of logging. It is just a matter of risk vs reward for the stakeholders.

Lastly, at this time, despite the promotion being forwarded, Pebbles has not proven to be economically feasible. Mines of this type require ~0.75 MW of power per 1000 tonnes/day, meaning that Pebbles will need a 100 MW power supply. Bristol Bay is a remote and high cost area, with an adverse environment for large scale mining, particuly in comparison to mines like Phelps-Dodge's Morenci/Mission mines in Arizona.

Lots of good thoughts being floated here. I can't help thinking after reading one of gmsemel's comments about the price of the resource driving the decision to "do it". It does make one think about the fact that "we" have managed to acquire quite a bit of cheap resources over the years from the Third World - where our "cheap" prices were a good value. Now that the "they" have or are becoming developed, they need resources which is one of the driving forces behind the present demand. We raped them, they now rape use, albeit somewhat willingly in either case ........??????

Early on, in a local newspaper interview, a representative of the mine stated that the cyanide process would not be used in their mining operations......two weeks later, during a community meeting, a Pebble representative stated, that they would not rule out the cyanide process during the operation of the mine.....

Joe

Thanks free miner - well stated. Also of concern in Pebble is the 100 miles or so of road it will take to get the ore to sea, crossing numerous salmon/rainbow streams. The dams will be "earth-fill" - the largest in the world. On permeable soils in earthquake country. It's that "current regulations" that bother me.....

ovis - when the hi-grade runs out.... Donlin Mine , farther NW on Kuskokwim headwaters, has applied recently for cyanide leach heap permits. I believe one of the partners in that mine is also involved in Pebble.

Saw an article in Bugle today about how Rio Tinto reclamation of a coal strip mine in Wyoming or somewhere has resulted in increased prairie elk winter range which didn't exist before. Pics looked good, too. Looks like fine sharp-tail grouse country. In some places, under some conditions, it can and apparently is being done well. I just don't think Bristol Bay is one of them under existing regulations.

It sounds like there is some grassroots opposition from the local populations though, for whatever it's worth. I heard, via a translating station, the news coming from the public radio station in Dillingham, an announcement about a protest against the Pebble Mine down that way. That may or not have any effect, but sometimes local folks are heard most loudly - sometimes.

Ias:

This is a great topic for all of us to be talking about. It does not matter where you stand on this issue we should be talking about it because once the first permit is issued this project is a go. The Pebble project is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many mega mines that are on the drawing board.

I live in the shadow of the giant Red Dog Zink mine and you referred to it as a red herring. Let�s examine the red project a little and then let�s look at a few other mega mines on the back burner.

The Red Dog ore vein was discovered by John Bakers father who ran a very early off strip flight service in NW Alaska many years ago. Baker notices that the color of what was to be known as Red Dog Creek was always a nasty bright red indicating that an ore vain was leaching into the surface water near by and that the ore must be very close to the surface. After landing near the source of RD Creek Baker took many rock samples and shipped them off to an assayer to find out what they contained. The ore was very rich in Lead, Zinc, Nickel, Silver and very little Gold. The Red Dog Creek was a dead river for many miles and was leaching heavy metals into the very famous Wiluk River that feeds the village Kivalina . This river was not a good source for drinking or fishing anywhere near the confluence of the Red Dog Creek because of the run off coming out of the ore body which was right at the surface. Keep in mind that we are talking about 40 years ago, no mine yet!

Well NANA regional cooperation teams up with Tec-Cominco and develops the largest open pit zinc mine in the world which ran in the red for many years but now is pumping huge profits into the NANA region, share holders pockets, NANA�s bank account and provides 750 local jobs where 20 years ago there were none. In developing this open pit monster, Tec created a huge containment pond that prevents any untreated water from reaching Red Dog Creek or the Wulik River. Red Dog Creek now has very healthy fish habitat and is a spawning area for some of the biggest Char in the state, ( the Wulik holds the state record Char) and lets keep in mind that this is a creek that was always very polluted and Never had any aquatic life at natures hand.

It is very true that Red Dog leads the nation in tons of toxic release but that toxic release is from every ton of rock that the mine digs up. The EPA counts over turned rock as a toxic release and this does make Red Dog the #1 toxic polluters just on shear volume of rock mined. This pit is huge! If you were to look at the amount of polluted water you would see that Red Dog does a good job of treating their water and the creek is now clear and clean.

I know that any body reading this will assume that I am a huge supporter of large mining projects but you would be very wrong. I think the Pebble project is a huge disaster in the making. You just don�t mess with the renewable fish streams that could be affected in that region. I also think the State needs to listen to the people who live in that region and they are all saying the same thing, No Pebble!

This is the sad part of all of this; Pebble and Red Dog is only the tip of this mining iceberg. In my part of the State alone, there are huge mines planed and 3 of them have seen millions of dollars of development in the past 2 summers. Nova Gold has 2 monster mines planned up the Kobuk River and both will dwarf the Red Dog project. Our wilderness is in extreme Jeopardy of being lost or as you are rightfully saying, crapping in our mess kit for a scoop of ice cream today.


All of us need to be on top of this discussion of super mines and the impact they all will have on our land and water. Hang on guys! It�s coming and in this state money talks and the resources will take an ass kicking if we are not careful!

PS sorry for any spelling errors.

Walt
Kotzebue Alaska
www.northwestalaska.com

Just like the ALaska Pipeline? Just wondering, because back then it was said that the pipeline would be a huge disaster, which I agree it could be, but so far it has not been.

I would think that with the imposed restrictions, such projects would work; much like the gold mines operating in the interior of AK-with less restrictions because of their locations. These mines are a huge source of revenue.

But then, I don't know anything about mining. I do believe that it's all environmental politics at the moment, and the TV and radio adds attest to that, just like the great opposition to the construction of the pipeline years ago.

Pebble/Chuitna projects bring them on and get some more projects. Maybe they will build some roads to go with it.

My favorite hunting spot is on the haul road only made possible by the pipeline.

las- I haven't read the BUGLE article, but I am a WY coal miner who works for Rio Tinto. It's true, our reclaim attracts lots of wildlife. On any given day, you can see antelope, mulies, occasional whitetail, turkey, ducks, geese, prarie chickens, elk, fox, coyote, etc. Last summer, a mountain lion with a couple cubs hung around for a while, probably cause of all the deer. I don't know a thing about Northern Dynasty, but RTEA is very responsible ecologically, even going the extra mile and fixing things that other mining companies left undone.

I think that was las' point

Wyoming

Lets keep in mind that the pebble project sits in a moist area that sees lots of run off and the best Salmon fishing in the worls. Most of the Wyoming Strip mines sit is a very dry region with no real fish stock to worrie about!

NWAK- Understood, In fact I have made this point myself, while discussing this with some of my mining buddies, most of whom want to go to AK to work, me included. I wasn't trying to make a comparison between the two operations, only that my employer, Rio Tinto goes above and beyond in the environmental department. There are other coal producers in the Powder River Basin, who do not.