Welcome to the latest installment of the Wednesday Wake-Up Call, a (mostly) weekly roundup of the most pressing conservation issues important to anglers. Working with our friends at Trout Unlimited, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, The Everglades Foundation, Captains for Clean Water, Bullsugar.org, and Conservation Hawks (among others), we’ll make sure you’ve got the information you need to understand the issues and form solid opinions.
If you know of an important issue–whether it’s national or local–that anglers should be paying attention to, comment below, and we’ll check it out!
Pebble and U.S. Army Corps Pull Last-Minute Change to Mine Proposal
Last Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced significant last-minute changes to the “preferred alternative” for the proposed Pebble mine, completely altering the transportation plan. No longer does the plan call for supplies and ore to be ferried across Lake Iliamna and over land to Amakdedori Port. Instead, the route will be completely over land, along the northern border of the lake, ending at a port at Diamond Point. The new route represents the fifth significant change to Pebble’s mining proposal since the application was submitted a little over two years ago. Yet, remarkably, the U.S. Army Corps “states they do not plan to conduct any new environmental analysis or provide additional opportunity for public comment and input”–refusing to even pause the fast-track permitting process already well underway.
“The continued, major changes demonstrate the basic problem with the Pebble mine proposal,” said Chris Wood, president and CEO of Trout Unlimited. “Pebble’s entire approach to developing this mine is held together by bubble gum, baling wire and duct tape. Alaska deserves better than that.”
Click here for the full story on the Save Bristol Bay website.
More coverage of this story:
- Mine opponents positioned to block access to Pebble mine after change in ‘preferred alternative’, from KTUU.
- Pebble’s Last-Minute Change of Plans a Classic “Bait and Switch”, from SalmonState.
- Pebble opponents in Bristol Bay say they will refuse access to lands for controversial mine project, from Anchorage Press.
- Anglers, Hunters To Army Corps: Go Back To The Drawing Board, from Save Bristol Bay.
- Bait and switch: Pebble Mine plan scales up with no public input, from National Fisherman.
This is the biggest collection of liberal foolery I have ever witnessed.
The environmentalists and liberals create fear-mongering wherever they pop up their heads. Common sense would concur and side with the Army Corps over the safer methods of travel by land rather than water craft ferry. This option was always a contingency of the Pebble Beach project plan. However, the naysayers want the public to believe that the Pebble Beach backers and the Army Corp pulled a fast one….Really? Look you jellyheads, If the Pebble Beach folks have an accident sue the crap out of’em. If on the other hand they are environmentally responsible reap the rewards for all Alaskans!
If they have an accident…”sue the crap out of them” does nothing for our environment or the species and resources lost! Only money in pockets, again, greed for money outweighs environmental protection and well being off this Earth! Reap the rewards, I think what you meant to say was rape the Earth.
Sure, let them have their way until something happens…then sue them for ‘money’ and half-assed repairs. AFTER they have ruined an irreplaceable resource. It is “meatheads” like you – that only care about digging the money out of the ground and pillage – that have put the natural world in an over-built, over-stimulated, under-managed, and mis-guided mess we are in. Stay the hell home, leave a little money in the ground and go find something else to ruin. This one is a national treasure and you are a fool – and perhaps buy your own propaganda. I do not.
You are a stupid person!!!
I see your point, and agree that an overland route is a safe bet, and that this change is not a bad thing, but the fact remains that the mine is moving forward and I don’t think that is acceptable. We should accept higher prices and less economic “progress” in order to leave absolutely zero chance that an accident might occur.
Planning for the contingency of suing a group for irreplaceably destroying one of the few places in the US that is truly and beautifully wild is ridiculous. How do you put a dollar amount on 50 years of cleanup and repair that might not even bring the area back to its former state? And another question you have to ask is, how would the company afford such a price if it exists? They can’t and would go bankrupt first, leaving the cost on the people after all.
There is no way or plan pebble mine can exsist in this most special place on earth without changing or damaging whoever and whatever makes this place their home. I have been fortunate enough to have visited this area and talk with the people who live there. Pebble mine is NOT wanted . This is a beautifil, wild, pristine place and should be allowed to stay that way.