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Recordings of conversations among mining executives reveal that the controversial Pebble Mine in southwest Alaska could operate for longer and at a larger scale than the proposal that is currently awaiting final approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
After extensive industry lobbying, the Corps of Engineers issued a final environmental impact statement last month declaring that the project would not cause “long-term changes in the health of the commercial fisheries.” The Corps of Engineers is expected to make a final decision on a permit for the project in the coming weeks. If approved, it would allow construction to begin. However, the recordings among executives reveal that the project could last 160 years beyond its stated 20-year timeline and the output would double within the first two decades, essentially rendering the project proposal currently under consideration irrelevant.
Environmentalists and local communities have fought against the open pit gold and copper mine for over a decade due to concerns it could have irreversible damage on the fragile arctic ecosystem, including for salmon populations that Alaska Native subsistence fishermen rely on. Alannah Hurley, the executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a Native group that opposes the mine, said the recordings were “very clear evidence that this company is not telling the truth...They’ve lied to everyone about what this project looks like and what their intentions are. It’s time now for our elected leadership to stand up for Alaskans and stop this corrupt process.”
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski responded to the revelations in the recordings, including accusations that she was secretly in favor of the mine, saying, “I am dead set on a high bar for large-scale resource development in the Bristol Bay watershed. The reality of this situation is the Pebble project has not met that bar and a permit cannot be issued to it.”
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I’ve said this several times, and it rings true, that this project is a two-fold reclamation project. The planting of the seedlings helps restore sagebrush to mined and disturbed areas and the growing of those seedlings helps reclaim the hearts and minds of the inmates who participate.”
