Why is pebble mine good

Douglas is hardly alone among Seattle chefs. An avid Northwest angler, Davis has fished the waters around Bristol Bay, too. These chefs have surprising allies—in local jewelers E. Robbins, Ben Bridge and Blue Nile. Robbins founder. Of course, the biggest impact on Seattle livelihoods in the event of an accident would be felt by commercial fishermen.

There are approximately Bristol Bay fishing permits owned by Washington state residents, with around fishermen in the Seattle area, not including all the support personnel who go north each fishing season. In a good year, a single boat might net as much as , pounds of salmon in the two-month window, earning a little more than a dollar per pound before expenses. Seattle resident Ben Blakey, 30, grew up fishing and working in Bristol Bay with his family, and now fishes for sockeye every year on his own boat.

Like virtually all fishermen, Blakey is opposed to the mine. Compared to profiting from salmon runs that have been returning on schedule more or less for millennia, he says, the mine is a short-term project and not worth it. But his argument goes beyond the merely economic. With the reelection of President Obama bolstering their hopes, mine opponents wait to see if the EPA will kill Pebble.

The West Seattle Bridge may not be open until ; the Farmers Markets are starting to come back, and the Tulip festival would like you to stay home, please. To reduce the chances of an accident, the Homestake mining company built its tailings dam to standards that far exceeded state regulations. It also converted the mine to a nature reserve after it closed in Schoenberger says that engineers now have even better options, albeit more expensive ones, for storing tailings safely, like drying and stacking them into stable, covered piles.

A post-mortem of the Mount Polley accident concluded that subjecting tailings facility plans to review by outside experts and adopting new storage methods are key to reducing the risk of future failures. Does that mean that any mine can be safe? Payal Sampat of Earthworks, a nonprofit, says no.

Sampat serves on the steering committee of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. Pebble does have its supporters, including Graedel. The US is currently a net importer of the minerals that would be mined at Pebble, he says.

Seal is less certain. Speaking at a breakfast meeting of the Resource Development Council for Alaska last month, Pebble CEO Tom Collier announced preliminary plans for what he said would be a smaller, safer mine. Collier said that the company had made numerous changes in response to concerns, including abandoning the use of cyanide to recover a portion of the gold and building a sturdier tailings dam.

Collier also announced that the mine would scale back dramatically, targeting just a fraction of the deposit. The new plan calls for a 5. Any day now, the EPA will announce whether or not it will lift its restrictions.

Alaska voters are pushing a ballot initiative that would require the state department of fish and game to grant permits for any project that could affect salmon habitat.

And the mine has amassed many high-profile critics over the years. Dozens of jewelers — including Tiffany and Co. Front and center are the voices of Native Alaskans, who — like many indigenous people living on resource-rich land — have the most at stake. Hurley says she understands the need to mine. All rights reserved. Share Tweet Email. Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city.

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There is overwhelming local opposition to the Pebble Project: a recent poll found that more than 80 percent of Bristol Bay residents are against it. Commercial fishermen , churches, restaurants, seafood processors, hunters and anglers, and grocery store companies all support protection of Bristol Bay salmon fishery over large-scale mining.

Four major mining companies — some of the largest in the world — have already walked away from the project. The Bristol Bay salmon fishery is a sustainable and renewable resource, whereas, the Pebble deposit is a nonrenewable resource. The ore from the Pebble mine will be shipped overseas to Asia , the profits will go to a foreign mining company, while the severe and lasting impacts stay here.

In contrast, if the clean water and wild salmon habitat of the Bristol Bay watershed are protected, the salmon fishery can continue to feed our nation and power our economy forever.