Chamber says no to clean water initiative
Published Saturday, May 3, 2008
The Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce has come out against the clean water initiatives, joining the mining industry in a fight against a total ban on toxic chemical releases into streams where salmon spawn and people drink.
The chamber’s board of directors unanimously passed a resolution opposing the initiatives, saying their passage would shut down mining in Alaska.
The state chamber is poised to pass a similar resolution next week.
With two gold mines and a coal mine surrounding Fairbanks, the chamber’s move came as no surprise to political consultant Art Hackney, spokesman for the Renewable Resources Coalition, which is pushing the initiatives.
Supporters of the ballot measures, including fishermen and environmentalists, say they are only trying to stop the proposed Pebble Mine in the Bristol Bay watershed about 700 miles away.
Opponents of the initiatives, namely the mining industry, think the ballot measures’ language is too strict and would lead to closing down existing mines.
“We are very concerned about the initiatives’ impact on our economy in Fairbanks,” said Rick Solie, chairman of the Fairbanks chamber’s board of directors. “A lot of people in the resources industry understand what a hoax these initiatives are.”
The resolution came before the Fairbanks chamber’s board last week after the organization’s natural resources committee heard from the group Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown.
No one supporting the initiatives asked to speak before the chamber or was invited to speak, according to Solie.
Kathy Porterfield, chairwoman of the board of directors of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, said her organization will deliberate the issue this summer.
Talks will begin in the chamber’s state and national affairs committee, she said.
“We are very interested in it,” Porterfield said, “because we do think it will impact businesses significantly.”
Wayne Stevens, president of the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce, said the executive committee for his organization passed a resolution against the initiatives.
The resolution is scheduled to go before the full board next week.
Mining industry supporters have been diligently lobbying business and civic groups statewide, asking them to speak out against the initiatives.
“We’re very pleased with the support we’re seeing around the state,” said Tim Sullivan, field director for Stop the Mining Shutdown.
Hackney said his group lacks the funds to mount the same sort of campaign.
“We don’t have the resources to do what they are doing, taking on the road a dog and pony show with PowerPoint,” Hackney said. “We are appealing directly to Alaskan voters. That’s where the battle is going to be fought.”
Community Discussion
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link to the initiative itself (2 pages, no excuse not to read it for yourself).
http://www.renewableresourcescoalition.o...
I'll admit that I am not particularly familiar with how most Alaskan mines operate, but I do know that certain mining methods can release large amounts of heavy metals and chemicals. It does seem interesting that our mining industry apparently can't survive unless it is allowed to release these things into streams. Do the mines support some kind of compromise? Are there other state or federal rules that govern how much cyanide, sulfur, toxic agents, etc. can be released in a water system?
On the other hand, it seems very curious that no one supporting the initiative showed up at the Chamber meeting. Did they not know it was happening or what?
What I'm really asking for is more actual information. This article doesn't really tell me WHY these two groups oppose each other.
Tom-
You'd be best off looking for information yourself. If the pro-miners see you asking for info, you'll get a bunch of uneducated, hyped-up bunk.
(Huh... and I work in mining...)
Go visit the site in the first posting. It clearly exempts existing mines such as Pogo so on that account the mining company ads are untrue. It has a definition of large scale mines that seems excessive. Anything over 640 acres but that includes everything including roads, power lines, mills. tunnels, housing, and other infrastructure. Not the same as a 640 acre leech pit. On that account the proponents statements are untrue.
A separate point as far as effective environmental controls are concerned: it is easier and more economically feasible to regulate a large scale mine than a small one just because the large scale mine has the financial resources. So the question is can a mine be made that does not harm the land? Is a small mine any better? I remember hearing that more oil gets spilled on American streets every year than the Exxon Valdez lost.
We need truth
Who paid for the highway around Ester a few years back when the road kept collapsing due to the mine there that had closed down suddenly due to embezzelment and other wrong doings? I'm sure they too had a reclamation clause...and I also bet Alaskan taxpayers paid, and paid and will continue to pay for the damages there and elsewhere associated with the mining industry. It's big business that's all it is...
Thanks for posting that link, Thomas. As an opponent of this initiative, I too recommend that everyone visit and read it CAREFULLY.
There is a lot of ambiguous legal mumbo jumbo to make this initiative look benign to current mining, but once you strip away all that legal lipstick, you can see environmental lawyers will use it to prevent all future mines that affect more than one square mile as well as deny future permitting to existing mines. The initiative states:
"""a person or entity may not, for large scale metallic mineral
mining purposes, engage in any activity that directly or INDIRECTLY:
(d) STORES or disposes of metallic mineral MINING WASTES, INCLUDING OVERBURDEN, WASTE ROCK, OR TAILINGS in, or WITHIN 1000 feet of ANY river, STREAM, lake, or TRIBUTARY THERETO, that is UTILIZED BY humans for drinking water or by SALMON in the spawning, rearing,
migration, or propagation of the species."""
Keep in mind that all mines produce waste rock or overburden to be stored and used later for backfill. When you dig a hole, you have to put the dirt somewhere until you can fill it back in.
Now, I ask everyone to drive just outside of Fairbanks and find a location you can store waste rock that is not within 1000 linear feet (as the Raven flies) of any "TRIBUTARY THERETO" that some lawyer from the Northern Alaska Eco-mental Center will not successfully argue to be a tributary to a stream that could potentially be used by salmon or people. Your only choice would be to truck the waste rock to Arizona.
As all current Alaska mines are well within watersheds of salmon streams, they will not survive without access to future permitting and I personally believe most will enter into mine-out and cease operations with 12-24 months of implementation of this initiative. That would be interesting to watch as Alaska's service based economy begins to roll over and the nation as a whole enters into stagflation.
"that is UTILIZED BY humans for drinking water"
All it would take is one "Tree Hugger" to fill a canteen and shut the mine down.
I was a miner for several years and couldn't count the moose and other wildlife that drank out of the tailings ponds and ate the vegetation that grows in or around it.
If anyone thinks that these mines are discharging anything remotely harmful to the environment I challenge you to do some real research, and I don't just mean EPA reports. Those don't explain the whole truth. They make the mines report everything that's in the waste, even if it came from the ground not the operation. You'll see arsenic in the tailings reports and these mines have never brought an ounce of it on the property. Yes they use cyanide, but it is destructed into an absolute inate product. You'll find more cyanide in broccolli or cigarettes than the tailings pond. Laugh ,or scoff, all you want these are facts.
Again, if you think these mines are in any way polluting, or could, do your homework, and don't just believe what any biased side tells you. Research mining techniques, the very strict laws the mines are forced to follow, look at discharge reports, etc.
I think what burns my backside the most is the Tree Huggers use a bunch of false propoganda to argue with the mines facts. Everything the mines report, good or bad, is actual data. Groups like NEC only tell you what they want you to hear.
common_sense, Now I'm not against mining but your post is way off the mark.. You want to ignore EPA reports? In favor of what, reports from mining companies? These are the kind of views the stratify the discussion and will not win anyone to your side. The history of mining has been filled with human death and ecological destruction. That is the data. That does not mean it has to be that way. The discussion should be open and honest then we can decide how to proceed. By the way, there are places where former mine sites are desirable playgrounds and there are sites you would want to keep your children far from.
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