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The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it won't take up Alaska's request to revive the controversial Pebble Mine project that was blocked by the EPA in 2021. Now the next round of battles over mining in Alaska is starting to take shape.
The Bureau of Land Management is considering removing protections across 28 million acres of wilderness lands known as "D-1 lands," that were blocked from development following the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Alaska senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan support removing D-1 protections, while dozens of tribes across Alaska have joined conservation groups to warn that opening up D-1 lands to mining would threaten Indigenous ways of living.
In northeast Alaska, the proposed Ambler mining road would cut through more than 200 miles of wilderness. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Alaska Native Ricko DeWilde warns that a recent BLM report on the effects of the road "describes only a fraction of the incredible consequences," which would include 3,000 culverts and 200 major bridges over waterways, including the Kobuk River.
As these fights play out, advocate Pamela Miller warns about the myth of "Alaska's robust environmental laws" and "world-class environmental practices." In the Anchorage Daily News, Miller provides a laundry list of failures in state oversight, starting with the governor's recent veto of a bill that would have addressed PFAS contamination of drinking water. Miller also points to a 2022 report that found that between 1995 and 2020, the five largest Alaska mines were responsible for approximately 300 spills a year, releasing more than 2.3 million gallons of hazardous materials over the 26-year span.
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The companies that want the road and industrial mining development only care about profit. They use the constant talking point that we need the minerals for a green future. Yet the most recent data show that that claim is false and the only thing present in abundance is copper. A green future that destroys some of the last intact wilderness in the world defies logic.”
