$500B Alaskan gold mine in upstream battle with EPA, salmon advocates

$500B Alaskan gold mine in upstream battle with EPA, salmon advocates

Posted by 12th_Man (#3) 297 days ago (http://www.foxnews.com)

An Alaskan mine that may contain more than $500 billion in gold, copper and other minerals will never get dug if environmentalists get their way.

The proposed Pebble Mine, near the headwaters of Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska, could yield a staggering 107 million ounces of gold, 80 billion pounds of copper and 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum, which is used to make steel alloys. Pebble Partnership, which wants to do the digging, is so confident of the bounty beneath the ground it has spent five years and $107 million monitoring the soil, water and air in order to assure the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) it can mine without causing ecological damage. Continued...

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Written by BearlyHere (#57)
235 days ago

A few things going on here.

For example, the public has been burned by gold mining operations in the past, where HUGE and COSTLY environmental problems have been dumped on other landowners and the taxpayers, while the mining operations close up shop and go.

"Pebble officials say the assessment is flawed because it is not based on any proposal from them, but on irrelevant mining scenarios." Yes, and the problem we've had in the past is that one scenario is proposed for approval, but as operations continue, another gets implemented.

Note how gold fluctuates. If these fluctuations are major, the environment can be put at risk. If gold goes down significantly, then there's little profit to sustain the protective measures. If gold goes up significantly, then the potential penalties of ignoring environmental protection are outweighed by the profit gained.

Also, it's not only residents, but other businesses put at risk by these operations.

Finally, note the following: “If you read the watershed assessment, the conclusion that the EPA came to is that even without a catastrophic dam failure, there would be cumulative effects over time that would have an adverse effect on fish and other animals in the region..."

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Written by Blatt (#36)
235 days ago

@BH: Why not just make the mining company buy A surety bond to protect against the scenarios you suggest?

For those of you not in the know, a surety bond or surety is a promise to pay one party (the obligee) a certain amount if a second party (the principal) fails to meet some obligation, such as fulfilling the terms of a contract. The surety bond protects the obligee against losses resulting from the principal's failure to meet the obligation.

So the mining company agrees to clean up it's mess as part of its land lease agreement. If the mining company fails to do so, the instrument is in place to finance the cleanup.

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