Vote pits economics of mining, salmon

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, Alaska voters will decide weather to pass Ballot Measure 4, also called the Alaska Clean Water Initiative.

Organizations both for and against the measure claim a vote for their side will protect one industry without harming the other, making a vote either way sound like a win-win situation.

But framing the debate as salmon vs. mining, each camp also claims a vote falling on the opposition’s side of the ballot will hurt the Alaska economy.

And while Alaska mining in general has been sucked into the whirlwind of public relations one-liners and campaign zingers surrounding Ballot Measure 4, the center of the vortex, both sides say, is undoubtedly the controversial proposed Pebble mine project near Lake Iliamna.

Proposed mine or prospect?
Both sides agree the intended effect of Ballot Measure 4 is to prevent the Pebble Partnership from building a mine.

A potential mine at the site has been controversial because of its location at the headwaters of the Upper Talarik Creek and Koktuli River, which is a portion of the watershed where Bristol Bay salmon go to spawn.

Spokespersons for the Pebble Partnership, owned half each by Canada-based Northern Dynasty and United Kingdom-based Anglo American, caution there is no proposed Pebble mine project as of yet.

Rather, the company is exploring a mining prospect.

The Pebble Partnership is drilling exploration wells and collecting environmental data but points out it has not yet proposed any particular mine. The company is in the pre-permitting phase for the site, and until it applies for permits — expected sometime in 2009 — it has not proposed any mine for the area.

John Shively, CEO of the Pebble Partnership, said that’s because they don’t know yet whether a mine will be economically feasible.

“What we are asking is for an opportunity to look to see if we have a project, and then make that public,” he said. “That’s assuming we come to the conclusion that we have a project that meets the high environmental standards we set for ourselves and that others expect for us, and the project is economically feasible.”

Bruce Spitzer, senior technical adviser for Alaskans for Clean Water, which campaigns for Ballot Measure 4, said he thinks Pebble Partnership knows more about what its plans are for the site than it’s telling.

The researcher-turned-environmental-consultant has worked with a handful of mining companies over the years and worked as an environmental consultant for Cominco, the original owners of the Pebble mining rights.

“They keep saying they don’t have a mine plan yet,” Switzer said. “That is a total crock. I’ve done so many mines, of course they have preliminary plans. It’s like somebody who has a property wants to build a house on it, and they say they don’t have plans for a house. Well, they might not know where the plumbing for the master bedroom will be, but they know what kind of house they’re going to build.”

Sean Magee, public affairs director for the Pebble Partnership, said the west side of the Pebble site, where the mineral resource is near the surface, “would be amenable to open-pit mining,” and that the east side of the Pebble site, where minerals are deeper, would require underground extraction.

He said the company is looking at a type of extraction called block-caving, in which a vertical shaft runs adjacent to the mineral reserve, and a horizontal shaft runs extends it.

But, he said, at this point the Pebble Partnership doesn’t know which, if any, mine it will construct, as it is still collecting data.

Fisheries vs. mining?
Whether one calls Pebble a proposed mine or a prospect, the fight over the ballot measure crafted to stop it has widened to what sounds like a battle between miners and fishermen.

Each side, however, claims to want to protect an industry without harming the other.

In support of Ballot Measure 4 is Alaskans for Clean Water.

Switzer, senior technical adviser with the organization, said the measure would simply return Alaska’s mining regulations to their former state of prohibiting mining companies from dumping pollutants where salmon spawn.

“Prior to Frank Murkowski becoming governor, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation had a regulation prohibiting discharge of mine waste into salmon spawning streams,” Switzer said. “Murkowski rolled that regulation back and replaced it with a mixing zone, which is a portion of a stream or river where they can dump mine waste into.”

He said the measure “restores protection to salmon spawning streams and prohibits discharge of mine waste into them.”

Against the measure is Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown. Its campaign director, Lyford Willis, said the measure will burden mining operations with unnecessary limits and regulations.

“Alaska already has strong rules for water quality and regulating pollutants,” Willis said. “We have other industries, other industrial facilities in Alaska that do have water quality issues — fish rendering plants, sewage treatment — there are folks violating water quality standards there. But in the measure they put forth, they singled out mining.”

And, he said, the wording of the measure is so vague that it would open up the mining industry to litigation.

“It’s poorly written. We can’t know the impact long term,” Willis said. “There’s a vast amount of uncertainty about what this will do.”

He said that at the Alaska Supreme Court hearing on whether the Alaska Clean Water Act could go before voters, one of the justices questioned the act’s clarity to Alaska voters after an hearing an hour of debate on the meaning of the act.

Switzer said the claim that Ballot Measure 4 is on legally fuzzy ground is false and a ruse to confuse voters into thinking they can’t understand the measure and that they should oppose it.

He said an act sends direction to legislators and regulators, and that the ballot measure would make it illegal for mining companies to dump toxic pollutants that will “adversely affect human health or the life cycle of salmon.”

The battle continues
Alaskans for Clean Water says that if Alaska votes “no” on Ballot Measure 4, Alaska’s fisheries will be vulnerable to destruction.

Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown says that if it votes “yes,” mine development will be impeded throughout Alaska.

Both sides are deploying advertising campaigns via television, radio and print in the last month of the battle for Alaskans’ votes. When the dust settles Aug. 26, the side on Ballot Measure 4 with the most votes will win.

But what the winner will claim is also an issue of contention.

Switzer said the legislature could “sit on the bill for two years and it’ll go away,” if it wants, and that passing the measure would in large part send a message to the state legislature that the public supports Ballot Measure 4 and it’s now safe to publicly oppose Pebble Mine.

Shively said that if the act is passed new laws or regulations will be written that the Pebble Partnership and mines in general will have to abide by and that, moreover, it could “make people with capital think twice about investing in Alaska.”