EPA: Mining would destroy fishery, villages, part of watershed in Alaska’s Bristol Bay

[question everything]

Source: Washington Post

A large-scale mining operation in Alaska’s Bristol Bay would destroy a significant portion of the watershed, a pristine fishery that supports nearly half the world’s sockeye salmon and dozens of Native villages that have relied on fishing for thousands of years, according to a report released Wednesday by the Obama administration.

The long-awaited final assessment on potential impacts of mining in the western Alaska region, compiled over three years by the Environmental Protection Agency at the request of area tribes, dealt a serious blow to a Canadian company’s ambitions to dig one of the world’s largest pit mines to extract resources from the mineral-rich land.

The company, Northern Dynasty Mining, has yet to file a permit for its Pebble Mine, but the EPA estimated that up to 94?miles “of salmon-supporting streams and 1,300 to 5,350 acres of wetlands, ponds, and lakes” would be erased by the footprint of a mining pit, depending on its size.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-mining-would-destroy-fishery-villages-part-of-watershed-in-alaskas-bristol-bay/2014/01/15/21e3b45e-7e20-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html

[Scairp]

1. Yay

Finally, someone is standing up to this company and stopping this mine from being dug. I hope this is the end of the discussion.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. We here are thrilled with this decision.

Late last year, Anglo-American dropped out of the partnership and Rio Tinto doesn't seem to want to get involved. Several major jewelers have stated that they would not buy gold from this venture. It looks like we may be on our way to shutting this down, something we've worked very hard toward for years.

NO PEBBLE, NOT NOW, NOT EVER. The wrong mine in the wrong place.

[hue]

3. K&R!!!