3     May 13, 2008 - 9:53am | ThorZone

How Clean is Clean?

Many of you know that over the last few years our water utility AWWU has been awarded national awards for great water. It is rated as some of the best drinking water in the US. That is something to be proud of.

As clean as AWWU's water is, it does not match the current clean water standards that are already in law today regulating mining discharges. Federal law allows AWWU to supply us water with 56 parts per billion arsenic, while 18 parts per billion arsenic is the requirement for mining discharge. Yes, that’s right, under current law, mining discharge is cleaner than drinking water and it has been that way for many years.

I know this doesn't sound right. When I have asked regulators about this they say it is because people only drink the water, fish have to live in it. Keep in mind that Cook Inlet water as it naturally occurs fails to meet both drinking and discharge standards, and one of the best salmon runs in the world (the Kenai River) seems to be just fine with it.

The current standards work great, and don’t need to be made any stronger. If there is a mine operating today that is not meeting these requirements it is because the regulators are letting it happen. To my knowledge there are no mines (with the exception of one man placer or dredging operations) in Alaska that are in violation of these regulations. Pitty the poor regulator that allows this to happen.

If the EPA and the Corp of Engineers regulated Anchorage households the same way they regulate mines, every time you water your lawn or wash your car, you would be in violation of the discharge requirements and could be fined thousands of dollars for each violation. Currently the regulations are not being enforced on household use of water, but if it were, you would be in big trouble.

The clean water standards called for in all of these insane initiatives are designed to do one thing. That is to stop all mining in Alaska. Don’t fall for the people saying the water is not clean coming out of mines or that the so called clean water initiatives will only stop new mining. These initiatives will stop all mining here.

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  2     May 9, 2008 - 8:34pm | pmjusa

Environmentalists Holy Grail contains “Clean Water”

But the clean water that the mining shutdown initiatives purport to protect never existed in the first place. As/per the initiatives, your tap-water or mine, or even the bottled water that we buy in the store would not reach the level of “clean water.” Is it fair, or even right that the clean water standard be raised higher for a mining company than it is for any other business or even “mother nature?”

As public money is spent in the courts to fight the planning for environmentally responsible development at Pebble, what happens to the prices of the commodities that we so take for granted? Likewise, the high prices we pay at the pump for oil and gas are the result of similar environmentalist political gamesmanship, restricting abundant oil and gas drilling and refining here in the USA. Think of that (and the “clean water" initiatives), next time you’re filling up your car. Little wonder an industry that is already forced to invest hundreds of millions to “do it right” here in Alaska will need to carefully evaluate their future risks not just in a realistic environmental sense, but also because of our easily manipulated legal system.
We can thank those who seek the new holy grail.

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  1     May 9, 2008 - 6:16am | Sockeyemark

Yahoo for CLEAN WATER

Most precious commodity will have some protection !!

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