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The Pebble Blog

The gigantic Pebble copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska is one of the touchiest topics in Alaska today.

In this blog, I'll track news that is significant or interesting about the Pebble project. I'll also try to generate discussion and information sharing about some of the claims and counterclaims about the project, and mining in general.

Please keep your comments courteous and on topic. If you violate the ADN comment policy, your posts will be deleted.

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About Elizabeth Bluemink ebluemink@adn.com

I've been writing about mining in Alaska since 2004 and without a doubt, it is one of the most interesting topics that I cover at the Daily News. I've been a newspaper reporter for the past 10 years. In the Deep South, I specialized in reporting about environmental conflicts and pollution cleanups. For two years, I covered commercial fishing, mining and logging in Southeast Alaska. In my current job as a Daily News business reporter, I write about mining, tourism, Native corporations and other businesses.

Pebble's $5 million fund

Posted by pebble_blog

Posted: April 17, 2008 - 5:26 pm

How would you spend $5 million in the Bristol Bay region?

Though some of the mine's critics see it as dirty money, the Pebble Partnership recently set up a $5 million fund for community-oriented projects in the region. The money is supposed to be divvied out $1 million per year over the next five years.

Here's a report that Pebble commissioned that attempts to assess the "development support needs" of the Bristol Bay/Lake and Peninsula region.

And here's an excerpt from the Lake and Peninsula Borough's on-line report about the Pebble Fund's first planning meeting:

Considerable time was devoted to discussing how the fund could be used to benefit the region. Some ideas that were mentioned included: fishery enhancement, assist with fuel cost, alternative energy, trash removal, ice for the salmon fishery, eco-tourism, fisheries research, education, assist communities in updating their strategic plans in order to help them leverage other grant opportunities. Priority issues were identified as: Energy, Jobs, Subsistence, Fishery Research, and Education.

The borough's report also identifies who will be serving as representatives for the Pebble fund's regional advisory committee until the actual members are selected.

These include:

Lower Nushagak: Billy Maines (Tina Car, Alternate) Upper Nushagak: Peter Christopher (Herman Nelson, Alternate) Togiak Bay: Fritz Sharp (Willie Echuk, Alternate) Bristol Bay: Lorianne Rawson (Gene Sanderson, Alternate) Iliamna and the Lakes area villages: Nathan Hill and Greg Anelon (Lisa Reimers, Alternate) Alaska Peninsula: Don Strand (Andrea Thompson, Alternate) Chignik Lake and Pen: Chuck McCallum (Arlene Trig, Ugashik Tribal Council, Alternate)

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5 April 25, 2008 - 9:25am | demorgan33

Here is some interesting math

Let's not get caught up in the hooplah of free money. Raw fish tax on Bristol Bay salmon gave between 6-7 million$ dollars to this region last year alone. With a forecasted increase in run strength and price for the upcoming seasons this number will do nothing but increase. We also have to factor in the vessel and permit renewal fees that average in excess of $500 per boat per season which as more permits become active adds at least another 1$ million to the states pockets every year. Not to mention all the jobs created and money spent in the local area. When put in perspective the 1 million per year five year payoff is just a drop in the bucket.

4 April 19, 2008 - 2:00pm | ThorZone

Amazing

Here the Pebble Partnership goes out of its way to be helpful to people in the region, and all they get for their trouble is a bunch of cynics saying Pebble is only a bunch of crooks and this investment into the region is nothing more than a bribe to get local people to support the mine.

$5 million is real money, and it will have a very positive impact to the area if it is used wisely. It also seems quite contemptuous that the critics immediately jump to the conclusion that the people in the area "can be bought". The people from that area that I know have a lot more integrity than that.

It is difficult for me to see this as a bribe, since it is so out in the open, up front before any money changes hands. Nobody is hiding anything here. Bribery is a crime that happens in the dark of night, behind closed doors.

April 20, 2008 - 1:56pm | Sockeyemark

Sounds like you've taken the Hook,line and sinker

And your defending this kind of action too!
There are people who lead, people who follow.

3 April 18, 2008 - 10:51am | PuckFebble

poorly veiled buyoff

I will borrow Jim Wallman's idea of just having "the partnership" to quit the bull and cut all the bay residents a check, because this is nothing more than a payoff. And a cheap one at that.
Regardless of how one feels about Pebble, this is a new low in the good faith relations between the two sides.

2 April 17, 2008 - 8:06pm | rfn

Pity that none of that money

will be paid directly to the Seattle-based processors who benefit most from Bristol Bay salmon.

April 18, 2008 - 9:32am | Sockeyemark

very few companies in Alaska are based here

Alaska Airlines....... NOT
BP Alaska............. Not
Conoco Phillips...... NOT
Carrs/Safeway...... NOT
Wilder Construction.. NOT
The list goes on........

1 April 17, 2008 - 6:11pm | Sockeyemark

Get on the dole, they want you feeding out of their hands

Might as well send a check to everyone in the area, the whole purpose is to buy your vote.
It's the way it works, too bad the fishing industry and people of the area will pay the ultimate price...watershed ruined along with fish and game....PRICELESS

April 18, 2008 - 6:19am | pmjusa

Getting Scare Tactics Rolling

These transparent scare-tactic type responses are so amazing. First impugn the character of your opposition, then posit an inevitable threat to an entire region. How ridiculous. We are seeing greenies doing this over and over.
Red Salmon are Red Herring vis-a-vis this issue, and clean water is already ensured by a proven state permitting process. If you want that process strengthened - good. However, short circuiting the process through mining shutdown initiatives is transparently obstructive.

April 18, 2008 - 9:34am | Sockeyemark

The initiatives are called "Clean Water Initiatives"

Who's running around saying the sky is falling???

April 18, 2008 - 9:13am | remoh

Scare Tactics?

But of course you are not impugning the character of anyone are you? (i.e. "greenies"). How ridiculous indeed. And too there are scare tactics on both sides, Chicken Little ("mining shut-down initiatives"). Neither clean water standards or permitting regulations, as good as they may or may not be, ENSURE nothing. They are merely our best attempts at preventing damage, not a guarantee of anything. I hope that the debate continues, with openness and honesty on both sides, and that if the prospect is developed we Alaskans go into it with open eyes and understand the ALL risks associated.
The world will not end if the mine is not developed. Nor if it is.

April 20, 2008 - 3:59pm | Sockeyemark

TeckCominco worker

I was director of environmental affairs with Cominco, reporting to the president during the time when this mine was starting up.

Red Dog Creek runs 2 1/2 miles from the Red Dog Mine to Ikalukrok Creek, which, 25 miles later, enters the Wulik River. It was a small stream dependent on precipitation and groundwater, and it was frozen solid in the winter. Based on a handful of samples, collected only after substantial exploration disturbance had occurred, it had low water quality caused by heavy metal and acidic discharge that impacted it as far as the Ikalukrok. This was the greatest extent of any reported natural contamination.

Once mining began this drastically changed. The Red Dog Mine water management plan suffered from inadequate hydrologic, meteorological, and geologic baseline data. For example, no groundwater data were collected for mine planning, and when an aquifer laced with heavy metals was intercepted there were no plans to redirect it from Red Dog Creek.

Combined with unanticipated precipitation and permafrost melt, acid mine drainage flooded into Red Dog Creek, contaminating the Ikalukrok and Wulik River to the sea. In 1991 the Environmental Protection Agency ordered remedial action, but Red Dog management evidently did not take it seriously. The EPA-ordered drainage ditch did not extend the length of the acid generating area, the liner in the ditch was perforated with shot rock and leaked like a sieve, and the water treatment plant did not work anyway. Contamination of the Ikalukrok and Wulik continued.

Several belated years later the EPA again took action. This time a $4.7 million penalty caught the attention of new Red Dog management. Apparently the acid drainage problems have been resolved, the treatment plant works and clean water is routinely discharged into Red Dog Creek. Trout should be there. The stream hydrology has been completely altered in accordance with the EPA order.

But the mystery to me is this: How can clean water opponents and Pebble supporters claim that finally improving stream hydrology in 2 1/2 miles of a little creek is a credit to the mining industry and support for the disastrous Pebble project, when for fifteen or more years the Wulik River with important grayling and Dolly Varden populations, not to mention one of Alaska's largest Arctic char runs, was annually poisoned?

Here's the important point: Teck Cominco has more experience building big mines in the North than any company in the world, and with a better environmental record than most. Cominco discovered the Pebble property in 1986 and conducted extensive exploration on it for several years, including during my tenure. In 2002 Teck Cominco sold it to Northern Dynasty for a measly $10 million and without retaining a position in it. In 2003 Northern Dynasty "discovers" the biggest gold/copper deposit in the world and soon Anglo American is its partner. Northern Dynasty and its parent company, Hunter Dickinson, have never planned, built or operated a mine anywhere. Anglo American has never built a mine in North America let alone in the North.

Now, consider all the problems Red Dog has had and the vastly more difficult environment at Pebble where there is four times as much precipitation, the water table is on the surface, and it overlies the most active seismic area in North America. Then ask this: How can Vancouver stock promoters and inexperienced South Africans protect this environment when the best and most experienced northern mining company had so many problems for so long in the far more benign environment at Red Dog, and, in light of all their experience, walked away from Pebble?

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