Nunamta Aulukestai sponsors meetings
to educate communities about proposed mine
By Sean Pearson
Homer Tribune
Though some of the players involved were different, much of the information regarding the feasibility and impacts of the Pebble Mine project on Bristol Bay fisheries and the Native Alaska subsistence lifestyle presented at last week’s community meeting at Islands and Ocean Visitor Center echoed similar concerns raised more than a year ago.
Nunamta Aulukestai, (Caretakers of Our Lands), is a consortium of eight village corporations that have combined to sponsor statewide community meetings to raise awareness of mining impacts on state resources.
According to Nunamta Aulukestai Executive Director Terry Hoeferle, the group invited community members to participate in presentations and a roundtable discussion in an effort to educate communities around the state on the impacts of Pebble’s plan to mine some 15 square miles for gold, copper and molybdenum. A similar meeting was held Thursday in Kenai.
More than 50 Homer residents turned out for the Wednesday meeting, which included presentations on mine permitting, the impacts of hard-rock mining, risks to fisheries and technical issues and concerns.
Bonnie Gestring, of Earthworks, spoke specifically on the impacts of hard rock mining, noting conclusions from a 2008 report to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Anchorage Office on acid mine drainage that found that, “... Acid mine drainage remains one of the greatest environmental liabilities associated with mining, especially in pristine environments with economically and ecologically valuable natural resources.”
Gestring also offered statistics from the Kuipers Maest Report that studied 25 mines around the world. Of those representative mines, Gestring reported that 76 percent polluted groundwater or surface water severely enough to exceed water quality standards.
“Worldwide, the mining industry has experienced two major tailings dam failures per year over the past 30 years,” Gestring noted from a 2002 study. “That’s just unacceptable.”
Dr. Carol Ann Woody also spoke on the risks to fisheries caused by hard rock mining, noting the effects of copper on salmon’s ability to sense direction by smell, thereby impacting their ability to return to spawn.
Pebble has indicated that many of its impact studies are not yet complete, and therefore, they cannot comment or speculate on what all those impacts might be.
“We’re committed to doing this the right way,” said Mining Coordinator Jack DiMarchi.
Showing posts with label Pebble Mine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pebble Mine. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Iliamna group takes proactive stance by touring mines
By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune
A group of people from the Iliamna Lake villages toured mines this fall owned by Angelo Am
erican in Chile and one in Montana in an effort to learn “on our own as much as we can,” said Iliamna Development Corp. Executive Director Lisa Reimers.“We decided we wanted to learn more about mining, and with that in mind founded ‘Engaging Communities,’” Reimers told an athropology class at the Kachemak Bay Campus of Kenai Peninsula College on Thursday. “All we had before was what others told us.”
The subsistence culture struggles to find jobs in cash-strapped villages where they are confronted by conflicting information, she said.
“We didn’t have any experience with mining,” Reimers told professor Catherine Knott’s class, which is studying Pebble. But instead of sitting back and watching as an international mining corporation, Canadian-owned Northern Dynasty, made its plans known, Iliamna Native Corp., took “proactive action,” she said. It formed the development corporation in order to qualify for contracts and gain the jobs that normally go to outsiders.
Iliamna and nearby Newhalen villages, with combined Athabascan-Yup’ik populations of about 150, are the supply center for the premining feasibility work that has occupied the Pebble Project for the past five years. Reimers is head of the for-profit corporation that handles the labor contract for Pebble, employing more than 80 villagers from about 10 communities.
“We still haven’t taken an official position on the mine project. We’ve been visiting mines and sharing that information with other communities. We wanted to see ‘bad’ mines, too,” she said, referring to those such as Montana‘s Berkeley Pitt, that is often cited as an example of pollution. The group was able to tour the mine this fall, and hopes to return for more interviews with environmental officials and others.
When asked about why they don’t look for economic development that wouldn’t have so much at stake, Reimers said villagers had sought a number of opportunities including eco-tourism and value-added fish market products. Commercial fishing no longer offers adequate income, she said.
But nothing promised steady pay in desperate times. Fuel is $8.50 a gallon in Iliamna. Some villages must ration fuel, which limits the distance hunters can go for caribou or moose. This causes food shortages ultimately, Reimers said.
Some village schools are closing up because people have to move, she said. “Our reality is that Pebble is what came along and offered the jobs,” she said.
Currently, Engaging Com-munities is working on a film with footage collected at the mines and interviews. Charisse Arce is a marketing graduate of Seattle University who helped produce the Iliamna Natives’ first film exploring people’s thoughts on Pebble, “The Voices of Bristol Bay.” She is currently editing the film about the mines, which won’t be released until later in February. Like “Voices,” it will include interviews with a variety of people involved in mining, and those from communities impacted by the mines.
During the first week of October the group traveled to Santiago, Chile, for five days with some individuals from the Pebble Limited Partnership, Arce said.
“We toured Anglo American’s Operations at the Los Bronces Mine located just outside of Santiago. The goal was to learn about Anglo American, its business and social practices, any environmental issues, and the company’s interactions with the community,” she said.
The trip’s agenda was set by Angelo American, but Arce and Reimers, along with a dozen others from the Bristol Bay region, were able to look at possible social impacts of the Los Bronces Mine.
They were shown social causes Angelo had contributed to in the region. Financial assistance was given to the Municipality of Colina to build a public library center open to all ages, Arce said.
“It also provides a useful after-school program for the kids in the community to practice their reading skills,” she said.
They also visited a recently renovated health center.
“The emergency health center provides much-needed emergency care to people in the community of Colina. Another place we visited in Colina was a culinary school for high school-aged students. These students come from disadvantaged backgrounds who attend this ‘trade school.’ Anglo American provides financial support for the public school to operate,” Arce wrote in a preliminary report. “This school has a very high graduation rate and job placement rate after graduation.
“We toured the mining operations at Los Bronces, which included the tailings dam and also the concentrator located at Las Tortalas, where the copper is processed using froth flotation. The distance between Los Bronces and Las Tortalas is around 40 miles. We were able to learn and see the crushing, milling, and flotation processes,” Arce wrote.
Since the mine visits aren’t complete yet, Reimers and Arce are reluctant to form conclusions. But they will be finalizing the film and sharing the information with villages in Kachemak and Bristol Bay, Reimers said.
Some of their interviews include the president of a local environmental nongovernmental organization, which mediates conflicts between the community and industry, one being the mining industry; several small business entrepreneurs who have benefited from an entrepreneurship program funded by Anglo American, and students who are currently interning at the Los Bronces Mine.
“We learned a considerable amount,” Arce said. “We were there for five days and we did our best to pack as much in as possible. We felt we merely scratched the surface of learning more about the impacts a mining operation has on the environment and communities around it.”
Guest editorial: All industries not the same
As I often do, I was spouting off about just how shortsighted, how downright insane it was to consider building North America’s largest open pit mine in Bristol Bay. My neighbor, a thoughtful man, an avid hunter and fisherman, who often indulges my rants, was polite and waited until I was done.
“You are probably right,” he admitted before reminding me that he worked for the oil industry, as if that somehow precluded him from taking a stand on this issue.
His is a common response from friends who work in the “industry,” as if all industries are cut from the same cloth. Yet comparing the oil and gas industry to hard rock mining is like comparing eagles to penguins: while both are birds, that’s where the similarities end.
Likewise, with oil and hard rock mining you could not have two more distinct entities, conducting business in such a completely different manner and treated so differently by both state and federal governments. First, there is a large chasm in how they are regulated and taxed, one benefiting the state and paying for infrastructure and schools, the other actually burdening the government with massive oversight and cleanup costs that fall on the backs of taxpayers.
Second, there is a huge difference in how these resources are extracted. Oil extraction on land, with innovations like directional drilling, is relatively benign, while large-scale hard rock mining causes a massive upheaval of all land and water around it, with toxic byproducts that must be stored on-site forever.
The complete inequity with which we treat these two industries is quite frankly unfair. The mining industry has the luxury of still being regulated under the Mining Law of 1872, an antiquated piece of legislation signed by Ulysses S. Grant, which allows them access to public lands for only a few dollars an acre.
Furthermore, they often conduct business on lands where oil companies would never be allowed to set foot, despite oil’s “footprint” being dwarfed by that of the other industry. When it comes to taxes, the disparity widens further. Alaska collects over 20 percent of market value of oil produced here, compared to a meager 1 percent of mineral production by large-scale mines. So, despite mining’s claim of adding millions to state coffers, if you do the math and include all oversight and subsidies, such as the Red Dog haul road, we actually pay out more than we take in.
Compound this by examining the track record of the two industries. Oil companies’ problems have been mainly with transporting oil, not with extraction. Mining, on the other hand, has seen repeated catastrophes, evident from the fact that 62 hard rock mines are now Super Fund cleanup sites, costing taxpayers a whopping $2.5 billion since 1997.
That’s not including the 93 other mining operations that would qualify for inclusion if the Super Fund was indeed super and had enough funds. These aren’t just old mines that are having problems. Anglo American, the second largest mining conglomerate in the world and the company that will be mining Pebble, had two dam failures in 2005, and the Lisheen mine, in Ireland, where permitting is as stringent as here, has been a disaster.
This state-of-the-art mine, opened in 2006, has in no way lived up to its promises, with streams below the mine now closed to fishing.
Oil and gas companies are also required to cap wells and clean up after themselves. Studies show that existing bonds for mines, however, are woefully underestimated, typically only covering 25 percent to 80 percent of cleanup costs, leaving taxpayers once again holding the bag. And this does not even take into account remediation for people who live in the area and risk losing their livelihoods and way of life.
So, whether you agree or disagree with projects like Pebble, before they are allowed to precede these large foreign conglomerates should at least be held accountable and be held to the same standards as other industries, because right now it’s evident — not all industries are treated the same.
Dave Atcheson is the executive director of the Renewable Resources Foundation, the educational arm of the Renewable Resources Coalition. He also is a freelance writer and author of the guidebook, “Fishing Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.”
“You are probably right,” he admitted before reminding me that he worked for the oil industry, as if that somehow precluded him from taking a stand on this issue.
His is a common response from friends who work in the “industry,” as if all industries are cut from the same cloth. Yet comparing the oil and gas industry to hard rock mining is like comparing eagles to penguins: while both are birds, that’s where the similarities end.
Likewise, with oil and hard rock mining you could not have two more distinct entities, conducting business in such a completely different manner and treated so differently by both state and federal governments. First, there is a large chasm in how they are regulated and taxed, one benefiting the state and paying for infrastructure and schools, the other actually burdening the government with massive oversight and cleanup costs that fall on the backs of taxpayers.
Second, there is a huge difference in how these resources are extracted. Oil extraction on land, with innovations like directional drilling, is relatively benign, while large-scale hard rock mining causes a massive upheaval of all land and water around it, with toxic byproducts that must be stored on-site forever.
The complete inequity with which we treat these two industries is quite frankly unfair. The mining industry has the luxury of still being regulated under the Mining Law of 1872, an antiquated piece of legislation signed by Ulysses S. Grant, which allows them access to public lands for only a few dollars an acre.
Furthermore, they often conduct business on lands where oil companies would never be allowed to set foot, despite oil’s “footprint” being dwarfed by that of the other industry. When it comes to taxes, the disparity widens further. Alaska collects over 20 percent of market value of oil produced here, compared to a meager 1 percent of mineral production by large-scale mines. So, despite mining’s claim of adding millions to state coffers, if you do the math and include all oversight and subsidies, such as the Red Dog haul road, we actually pay out more than we take in.
Compound this by examining the track record of the two industries. Oil companies’ problems have been mainly with transporting oil, not with extraction. Mining, on the other hand, has seen repeated catastrophes, evident from the fact that 62 hard rock mines are now Super Fund cleanup sites, costing taxpayers a whopping $2.5 billion since 1997.
That’s not including the 93 other mining operations that would qualify for inclusion if the Super Fund was indeed super and had enough funds. These aren’t just old mines that are having problems. Anglo American, the second largest mining conglomerate in the world and the company that will be mining Pebble, had two dam failures in 2005, and the Lisheen mine, in Ireland, where permitting is as stringent as here, has been a disaster.
This state-of-the-art mine, opened in 2006, has in no way lived up to its promises, with streams below the mine now closed to fishing.
Oil and gas companies are also required to cap wells and clean up after themselves. Studies show that existing bonds for mines, however, are woefully underestimated, typically only covering 25 percent to 80 percent of cleanup costs, leaving taxpayers once again holding the bag. And this does not even take into account remediation for people who live in the area and risk losing their livelihoods and way of life.
So, whether you agree or disagree with projects like Pebble, before they are allowed to precede these large foreign conglomerates should at least be held accountable and be held to the same standards as other industries, because right now it’s evident — not all industries are treated the same.
Dave Atcheson is the executive director of the Renewable Resources Foundation, the educational arm of the Renewable Resources Coalition. He also is a freelance writer and author of the guidebook, “Fishing Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.”
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Shively: Pebble project may not work
By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune
Pebble Partnership’s chief executive said Thursday the concept of the proposed Pebble Mine is not a sure go; that in the end, it might not pencil out as possible.
“It is possible this project will not prove economically or otherwise feasible,” John Shively told Catherine Knott’s class at the Kachemak Bay Campus of Kenai Peninsula College.
Shively had opened to a question-answer session after making a brief PowerPoint presentation. For the next two hours, students asked questions for their culture and ecology class.
“We invited John Shively because we are looking at the Pebble Mine process as a case study,” Knott said.
The idea is to study the impact of environmental change on human society. With that in mind, the class is studying the Pebble project from a number of angles and a host of speakers.
Any number of factors could doom Pebble Mine’s prospects, Shively said. World economics could cause the major investors, Angelo American and Northern Dynasty, to find obstacles to financing the project. Or exorbitant transportation and energy costs at a time when the world commodities market sees a sharp downturn in the price of gold could prove stumbling points.
“All of these projects have to survive economic hurdles. This one is subject to an extensive economic review. In the short run, it might not work, but in 10 to 15 or 50 years, it might be more economically possible,” he said.
The trans-Alaska oil pipeline, at the time of its construction in the mid-1970s, cost $8 billion. In today’s inflated environment, compare that to the projected $6 billion to build Pebble Mine. That estimation has soared from $3.5 billion when Shively accepted the position with the Pebble Partnership in April.
“The cost of everything has gone up: the costs of steel, the costs of equipment, the cost of energy to run the equipment. It all adds to the costs,” Shively said.
Shively pointed to his 40 years in Alaska, working for the NANA Regional Corp., overseeing contracts starting up the Red Dog Mine, and his work as chief of staff and commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources with the Bill Sheffield and Tony Knowles administrations.
Shively was drilled on a number of environmental questions. Bringing the former head of the Division of Habitat, Ken Taylor, on staff is a recruitment that Shively pointed out with pride because Taylor has perhaps more knowledge of the Bristol Bay watershed than other experts, he said.
“And after 40 years in Alaska, I don’t want to be the one they point to and say I messed up Bristol Bay,” he said.
“Environmental interest will cause us to do the best we can do. We have to be able to protect the fishery, and if we can’t prove that to ourselves, then we shouldn’t do it,” he added.
In the meantime, there is much to figure out ahead of time. The biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge is power generation.
Given the timeline for starting the permitting process in late 2009 or early 2010, which involves gaining approval for 67 types of permits from 11 federal and state agencies, and a projected four years of construction, Pebble won’t be mined until 2020, Shively said. Alternative energy sources becoming available likely will offer new options in the coming years.
“In the meantime, we have to have some idea of where we will get our energy to understand what our project will cost,“ he said.
The mine could start on liquefied natural gas, then consider new methods, such as geothermal, wind or combinations of those down the road.
The mine will require as many megawatts as it takes to power Anchorage, with its 300,000 population. That’s about 600 megawatts, even though the dozen villages around Pebble have a combined population of about 1,800 people. It will not be diesel fuel, Shively said, which is costly and would need to come in high volume.
From the start, Shively thought the best path would be to invite Native groups in the region to become involved in what energy is ultimately decided as a power source for the mine, he said.
“It makes sense to provide lasting, low-cost energy benefits to the people of the region,” he said
The summer’s feasibility study releases are online at: www.pebblepartnership.com.
Homer Tribune
Pebble Partnership’s chief executive said Thursday the concept of the proposed Pebble Mine is not a sure go; that in the end, it might not pencil out as possible.
“It is possible this project will not prove economically or otherwise feasible,” John Shively told Catherine Knott’s class at the Kachemak Bay Campus of Kenai Peninsula College.
Shively had opened to a question-answer session after making a brief PowerPoint presentation. For the next two hours, students asked questions for their culture and ecology class.
“We invited John Shively because we are looking at the Pebble Mine process as a case study,” Knott said.
The idea is to study the impact of environmental change on human society. With that in mind, the class is studying the Pebble project from a number of angles and a host of speakers.
Any number of factors could doom Pebble Mine’s prospects, Shively said. World economics could cause the major investors, Angelo American and Northern Dynasty, to find obstacles to financing the project. Or exorbitant transportation and energy costs at a time when the world commodities market sees a sharp downturn in the price of gold could prove stumbling points.
“All of these projects have to survive economic hurdles. This one is subject to an extensive economic review. In the short run, it might not work, but in 10 to 15 or 50 years, it might be more economically possible,” he said.
The trans-Alaska oil pipeline, at the time of its construction in the mid-1970s, cost $8 billion. In today’s inflated environment, compare that to the projected $6 billion to build Pebble Mine. That estimation has soared from $3.5 billion when Shively accepted the position with the Pebble Partnership in April.
“The cost of everything has gone up: the costs of steel, the costs of equipment, the cost of energy to run the equipment. It all adds to the costs,” Shively said.
Shively pointed to his 40 years in Alaska, working for the NANA Regional Corp., overseeing contracts starting up the Red Dog Mine, and his work as chief of staff and commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources with the Bill Sheffield and Tony Knowles administrations.
Shively was drilled on a number of environmental questions. Bringing the former head of the Division of Habitat, Ken Taylor, on staff is a recruitment that Shively pointed out with pride because Taylor has perhaps more knowledge of the Bristol Bay watershed than other experts, he said.
“And after 40 years in Alaska, I don’t want to be the one they point to and say I messed up Bristol Bay,” he said.
“Environmental interest will cause us to do the best we can do. We have to be able to protect the fishery, and if we can’t prove that to ourselves, then we shouldn’t do it,” he added.
In the meantime, there is much to figure out ahead of time. The biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge is power generation.
Given the timeline for starting the permitting process in late 2009 or early 2010, which involves gaining approval for 67 types of permits from 11 federal and state agencies, and a projected four years of construction, Pebble won’t be mined until 2020, Shively said. Alternative energy sources becoming available likely will offer new options in the coming years.
“In the meantime, we have to have some idea of where we will get our energy to understand what our project will cost,“ he said.
The mine could start on liquefied natural gas, then consider new methods, such as geothermal, wind or combinations of those down the road.
The mine will require as many megawatts as it takes to power Anchorage, with its 300,000 population. That’s about 600 megawatts, even though the dozen villages around Pebble have a combined population of about 1,800 people. It will not be diesel fuel, Shively said, which is costly and would need to come in high volume.
From the start, Shively thought the best path would be to invite Native groups in the region to become involved in what energy is ultimately decided as a power source for the mine, he said.
“It makes sense to provide lasting, low-cost energy benefits to the people of the region,” he said
The summer’s feasibility study releases are online at: www.pebblepartnership.com.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Pebble Mine dialogue ‘whethers’ concern — Opponents question how unbiased process will be
By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter
Before deciding whether they would participate in a stakeholder dialogue process about Pebble Mine bankrolled by the proposed mine’s parent company, attendees of a meeting last week wanted to know if not building the mine was even an option.
Representatives from The Keystone Center, an independent mediation organization out of Denver, held a meeting at Kenai Peninsula College on Oct. 13 to explain how a Pebble Stakeholder Assessment and Dialogue Feasibility Study would be conducted, in the hope of garnering participation from peninsula residents in the dialogue meant to determine whether the mine should be built, and if so, how that will occur.
Pebble opponents in the audience were skeptical that “whether” was even an option in the process, since Northern Dynasty Minerals is footing the bill.
“There’s kind of an inherent problem because Pebble does have a predetermined outcome. For them, it’s not a whether. It’s a how for Pebble. So I just see an inherent problem, or the perception of one,” said Dave Atcheson, who is on the board of directors for the Renewable Resources Coalition, which opposes Pebble Mine. “And I read a lot about your group, and you’re a well-respected organization … but it’s a little different situation when you’re hired by the group that wants the how.”
Todd Bryan, Ph.D, a senior associate with Keystone, said Northern Dynasty hired the organization, but the group is independent and the mining company did not influence the process Keystone designed to gather stakeholder input, nor would it influence the outcome of the dialogue process.
“It’s not our goal to help Pebble get a mine,” Bryan said. “… When somebody pays us, they often have an outcome they would like to get. We make it very clear that it’s not our goal to get that outcome for them. In this case, we’re not trying to achieve their goal; we’re trying to help people out there make a decision about this very important project. We wouldn’t be in business for 36 years if we weren’t able to maintain that firewall between us and our work, and them and their work.”
Bryan said Keystone is typically brought in by government agencies to reach consensus between stakeholders, usually in land-use debates where public lands have multiple and conflicting mandates. Working for a for-profit business is rare.
“It’s seldom industry hires us because a lot of times the industry doesn’t see that there are multiple interests at stake and a need to try to balance them, but in this case, Pebble sees that,” Bryan said. “I think Pebble recognizes there’s an extremely valuable and sensitive salmon fishery that is particularly at risk and there are significant development needs that are trying to be met.”
Keystone began the process last spring with a stakeholder assessment that involved interviewing about 90 people on all sides of the issue. From that they categorized stakeholders in a continuum of being adamantly opposed to the mine and unwilling to participate in a dialogue process, to those who supported the mine and didn’t believe a dialogue process was necessary.
The dialogue process would be for people in between; those who are opposed to the mine but think it will be built and want input into how it will be built; those who don’t feel like they have enough information to decide whether they support the mine or not; and those who support the mine and think a dialogue process will improve the mine’s design.
From the interviews, Keystone compiled a list of environmental, economic and social issues and concerns the dialogue process would address, including damage that may be done to fishing and the Bristol Bay watershed, the lack of economic benefit the state would get from the mining operation, and the loss of subsistence opportunities and related cultural impacts on Natives in the area.
Bryan outlined the three stages of the dialogue process Keystone recommends. All stages involve opportunities for input, Bryan said.
“They can leave the talk at any time if they decided they’re totally opposed to the mine. Participating in the process does not inherently mean any support in any way, shape or form in the mine. We don’t want people to think by participating it’s some kind of tacit support of it, because it’s not,” he said.
In the first stage, independent science panels would be formed including independent, recognized, unbiased experts to review and assess the credibility of data that’s been gathered on Pebble in five topic areas — geology and hydrology; water quality; fish, wildlife and habitat; social and economic dynamics; and sustainable mining practices.
That last topic sparked some heartburn.
“Sustainable mining sounds kind of like an oxymoron to me,” said Jerry Brookman.
Bryan explained that it’s an industry term, referring to the sustainable economic development of a mine. But perhaps defining what that term means for stakeholders could be part of the dialogue process, he said.
“To me, sustainable is salmon coming back year after year after year, not taking a chunk of gold and making a ring out of it, that doesn’t seem sustainable to me. So I will definitely be interested in your definition for that,” said Krista Nyberg.
The second stage in the process involves joint fact-finding working groups, made up of scientists and stakeholders charged with gathering additional information to fill in any gaps or lingering questions that are identified in the independent science panels stage.
Stage three is the project planning collaborative, where a group of 20 to 30 stakeholders representative of those for, against and undecided about the mine, use existing information and additional information gathered to develop an “environmentally and socially preferred mining scenario or scenarios,” Bryan said.
Bryan said the plan is for the mine alternative designed by this group to go to Pebble to be submitted for the permitting process.
Brookman pointed out that Pebble is already working on a mine design, independent of the eventual results of the dialogue process. Bryan said the intent is to merge the two plans.
“At some point of the process we will merge the two things, the Project Planning Collaborative with what Pebble has already done,” he said. “The benefit of that is people will be able to react to what Pebble has come up with … the other side of that is that Pebble will have made some preliminary planning decisions independent of this collaborative planning process.”
Atcheson wanted to know if there was any guarantee Pebble would include the recommendations that come out of the dialogue process. There are none, Bryan said.
“We don’t know what Pebble may do. They may decide to go through the permitting process on their own, without any consensus from the groups,” Bryan said.
“I would feel a lot better if, as the process goes along, the public was allowed to have more information about what it is they’re proposing to do,” Brookman said. “Because once it gets to the public comment period, it’s already mostly set.”
Choosing to be involved in the process is a way to have a say in what happens with Pebble, Bryan said.
“There is a chance that it will get a permit, so it might be wise to participate in this process and to try to influence its design, if it’s going to go forward,” Bryan said.
Members of the audience said it seemed like the process is designed around the idea that the mine will happen, with each step progressing to the ultimate goal of producing a design that will be submitted for permitting.
“There’s a huge population that wants that land for hunting and fishing and keep it pristine, with no mine — none,” Nyberg said. “And I feel like they aren’t being represented in this. And if Keystone is supposed to be a nonbiased report, it’s already sounding like it’s not really quite there.”
Bryan said there is an option at each step of the process for stakeholders to decide that no mine is the best mine, and reach consensus on recommending Pebble not build anything. But that may not happen. Even if it does, a “no mine” consensus from the dialogue process doesn’t mean Pebble won’t be built anyway. If that’s the case, it’s better to have a voice in designing a mine alternative, he said.
“After getting information, if people decide to leave the process and go fight (the mine), we want to make sure people are free to do that, but that doesn’t mean Pebble won’t go ahead and seek a permit,” Bryan said. “Leaving the process doesn’t change what Pebble may do.”
Bryan said meetings of the independent science panels will be shared by video teleconferencing with communities around Southcentral, including the central peninsula, and will be held as early as December. If the process continues to the joint fact-finding stage, that likely will take place in December and January. Stage three, the project planning collaborative, is tentatively scheduled for early 2009.
Bryan said he thought the Soldotna meeting went well, and he appreciated the feedback.
“People were asking really good questions. It really showed that they thought about this a lot and it’s a really critical issue to them. We want to show them that the process has some merit and we’ll work on making it more relevant,” he said. “… I think that they have valid concerns about it and they are important. We understand their concerns and why they have them.”
Atcheson said he questions the process’ funding, and is interested to see if Keystone will address the concerns raised by the audience.
“It concerns me a little that they’re being paid by the Pebble Partnership. The Keystone group’s well-respected and everything, but it makes me a little leery of the process. And that’s a concern for a lot of people, I would think,” he said. “And I don’t like that there wasn’t a no mine option. I think they heard me and the other people that voiced the same concern.”
Redoubt Reporter
Before deciding whether they would participate in a stakeholder dialogue process about Pebble Mine bankrolled by the proposed mine’s parent company, attendees of a meeting last week wanted to know if not building the mine was even an option.
Representatives from The Keystone Center, an independent mediation organization out of Denver, held a meeting at Kenai Peninsula College on Oct. 13 to explain how a Pebble Stakeholder Assessment and Dialogue Feasibility Study would be conducted, in the hope of garnering participation from peninsula residents in the dialogue meant to determine whether the mine should be built, and if so, how that will occur.
Pebble opponents in the audience were skeptical that “whether” was even an option in the process, since Northern Dynasty Minerals is footing the bill.
“There’s kind of an inherent problem because Pebble does have a predetermined outcome. For them, it’s not a whether. It’s a how for Pebble. So I just see an inherent problem, or the perception of one,” said Dave Atcheson, who is on the board of directors for the Renewable Resources Coalition, which opposes Pebble Mine. “And I read a lot about your group, and you’re a well-respected organization … but it’s a little different situation when you’re hired by the group that wants the how.”
Todd Bryan, Ph.D, a senior associate with Keystone, said Northern Dynasty hired the organization, but the group is independent and the mining company did not influence the process Keystone designed to gather stakeholder input, nor would it influence the outcome of the dialogue process.
“It’s not our goal to help Pebble get a mine,” Bryan said. “… When somebody pays us, they often have an outcome they would like to get. We make it very clear that it’s not our goal to get that outcome for them. In this case, we’re not trying to achieve their goal; we’re trying to help people out there make a decision about this very important project. We wouldn’t be in business for 36 years if we weren’t able to maintain that firewall between us and our work, and them and their work.”
Bryan said Keystone is typically brought in by government agencies to reach consensus between stakeholders, usually in land-use debates where public lands have multiple and conflicting mandates. Working for a for-profit business is rare.
“It’s seldom industry hires us because a lot of times the industry doesn’t see that there are multiple interests at stake and a need to try to balance them, but in this case, Pebble sees that,” Bryan said. “I think Pebble recognizes there’s an extremely valuable and sensitive salmon fishery that is particularly at risk and there are significant development needs that are trying to be met.”
Keystone began the process last spring with a stakeholder assessment that involved interviewing about 90 people on all sides of the issue. From that they categorized stakeholders in a continuum of being adamantly opposed to the mine and unwilling to participate in a dialogue process, to those who supported the mine and didn’t believe a dialogue process was necessary.
The dialogue process would be for people in between; those who are opposed to the mine but think it will be built and want input into how it will be built; those who don’t feel like they have enough information to decide whether they support the mine or not; and those who support the mine and think a dialogue process will improve the mine’s design.
From the interviews, Keystone compiled a list of environmental, economic and social issues and concerns the dialogue process would address, including damage that may be done to fishing and the Bristol Bay watershed, the lack of economic benefit the state would get from the mining operation, and the loss of subsistence opportunities and related cultural impacts on Natives in the area.
Bryan outlined the three stages of the dialogue process Keystone recommends. All stages involve opportunities for input, Bryan said.
“They can leave the talk at any time if they decided they’re totally opposed to the mine. Participating in the process does not inherently mean any support in any way, shape or form in the mine. We don’t want people to think by participating it’s some kind of tacit support of it, because it’s not,” he said.
In the first stage, independent science panels would be formed including independent, recognized, unbiased experts to review and assess the credibility of data that’s been gathered on Pebble in five topic areas — geology and hydrology; water quality; fish, wildlife and habitat; social and economic dynamics; and sustainable mining practices.
That last topic sparked some heartburn.
“Sustainable mining sounds kind of like an oxymoron to me,” said Jerry Brookman.
Bryan explained that it’s an industry term, referring to the sustainable economic development of a mine. But perhaps defining what that term means for stakeholders could be part of the dialogue process, he said.
“To me, sustainable is salmon coming back year after year after year, not taking a chunk of gold and making a ring out of it, that doesn’t seem sustainable to me. So I will definitely be interested in your definition for that,” said Krista Nyberg.
The second stage in the process involves joint fact-finding working groups, made up of scientists and stakeholders charged with gathering additional information to fill in any gaps or lingering questions that are identified in the independent science panels stage.
Stage three is the project planning collaborative, where a group of 20 to 30 stakeholders representative of those for, against and undecided about the mine, use existing information and additional information gathered to develop an “environmentally and socially preferred mining scenario or scenarios,” Bryan said.
Bryan said the plan is for the mine alternative designed by this group to go to Pebble to be submitted for the permitting process.
Brookman pointed out that Pebble is already working on a mine design, independent of the eventual results of the dialogue process. Bryan said the intent is to merge the two plans.
“At some point of the process we will merge the two things, the Project Planning Collaborative with what Pebble has already done,” he said. “The benefit of that is people will be able to react to what Pebble has come up with … the other side of that is that Pebble will have made some preliminary planning decisions independent of this collaborative planning process.”
Atcheson wanted to know if there was any guarantee Pebble would include the recommendations that come out of the dialogue process. There are none, Bryan said.
“We don’t know what Pebble may do. They may decide to go through the permitting process on their own, without any consensus from the groups,” Bryan said.
“I would feel a lot better if, as the process goes along, the public was allowed to have more information about what it is they’re proposing to do,” Brookman said. “Because once it gets to the public comment period, it’s already mostly set.”
Choosing to be involved in the process is a way to have a say in what happens with Pebble, Bryan said.
“There is a chance that it will get a permit, so it might be wise to participate in this process and to try to influence its design, if it’s going to go forward,” Bryan said.
Members of the audience said it seemed like the process is designed around the idea that the mine will happen, with each step progressing to the ultimate goal of producing a design that will be submitted for permitting.
“There’s a huge population that wants that land for hunting and fishing and keep it pristine, with no mine — none,” Nyberg said. “And I feel like they aren’t being represented in this. And if Keystone is supposed to be a nonbiased report, it’s already sounding like it’s not really quite there.”
Bryan said there is an option at each step of the process for stakeholders to decide that no mine is the best mine, and reach consensus on recommending Pebble not build anything. But that may not happen. Even if it does, a “no mine” consensus from the dialogue process doesn’t mean Pebble won’t be built anyway. If that’s the case, it’s better to have a voice in designing a mine alternative, he said.
“After getting information, if people decide to leave the process and go fight (the mine), we want to make sure people are free to do that, but that doesn’t mean Pebble won’t go ahead and seek a permit,” Bryan said. “Leaving the process doesn’t change what Pebble may do.”
Bryan said meetings of the independent science panels will be shared by video teleconferencing with communities around Southcentral, including the central peninsula, and will be held as early as December. If the process continues to the joint fact-finding stage, that likely will take place in December and January. Stage three, the project planning collaborative, is tentatively scheduled for early 2009.
Bryan said he thought the Soldotna meeting went well, and he appreciated the feedback.
“People were asking really good questions. It really showed that they thought about this a lot and it’s a really critical issue to them. We want to show them that the process has some merit and we’ll work on making it more relevant,” he said. “… I think that they have valid concerns about it and they are important. We understand their concerns and why they have them.”
Atcheson said he questions the process’ funding, and is interested to see if Keystone will address the concerns raised by the audience.
“It concerns me a little that they’re being paid by the Pebble Partnership. The Keystone group’s well-respected and everything, but it makes me a little leery of the process. And that’s a concern for a lot of people, I would think,” he said. “And I don’t like that there wasn’t a no mine option. I think they heard me and the other people that voiced the same concern.”
Editorial: Give Pebble talk a chance
Attendees of a meeting explaining a stakeholder dialogue process about Pebble Mine were skeptical that the purpose really is to have input into determining the best mining alternative for the Bristol Bay watershed — up to and including no mine and all.
With good reason. It’s difficult to believe “no mine” is an option when the proposed mine’s owner, Northern Dynasty Minerals, is paying for the dialogue process.
Mine opponents don’t want to discuss how it might be possible to build an economically productive and environmentally sensitive mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay.
They’re sure beyond all doubt it’s not possible. They know there has never been a mine of the type proposed for Pebble that hasn’t contaminated the environment, and that the mine’s developers have a poor track record with mining projects around the world. They know how vitally important Bristol Bay salmon runs are, and how impossible it would be to protect them from effects of Pebble.
They want to shout their message loud and clear, not sit through a dialogue of “what ifs” and “maybes.”
The problem is, an increase in volume doesn’t necessarily mean more people will listen. Polls after the Clean Water Initiative failed in August’s primary election showed a sizable chunk of people don’t believe Pebble is as large a risk as opponents say it is, or don’t believe the information that’s come out on either side.
That’s why even Pebble opponents should participate in the dialogue process.
If opponents are correct that this is all a sham to generate good PR for the Pebble Partnership — and they could well be right, since there’s no guarantee mine developers will listen to, much less include, anything that comes out of this process — then so be it. It’s still worth participating.
If opponents don’t join in, that makes good PR for Pebble, as well — here they are extending an olive branch, and their detractors won’t take it.
The dialogue’s coordinator has offered to have people sign a statement saying their participation in the dialogue process does not mean they support the mine. The Keystone Center that’s facilitating the process has a good reputation for independent, unbiased work. Center representatives say they’ll stand up to Pebble if mine backers try to play off the opposition’s participation in the process as meaning environmentalists support the mine.
And if Keystone’s Todd Bryan is right that the mine may be permitted no matter what the opposition says or does, having a seat at the table could give opponents a chance to help design the best mine possible. Granted, to them, no mine is the best mine, but if there’s unavoidably going to be one, why not try to make it the least damaging option?
Most importantly, mine opponents stand to gain an audience for their message if they participate in the process. They can make sure their side is represented, and the information showing Pebble’s danger isn’t ignored.
The Pebble Partnership sees the Keystone process as a tool to help convince the public to allow the mine. Opposition groups should view the Keystone process as a similarly powerful tool bent in the opposite direction.
With good reason. It’s difficult to believe “no mine” is an option when the proposed mine’s owner, Northern Dynasty Minerals, is paying for the dialogue process.
Mine opponents don’t want to discuss how it might be possible to build an economically productive and environmentally sensitive mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay.
They’re sure beyond all doubt it’s not possible. They know there has never been a mine of the type proposed for Pebble that hasn’t contaminated the environment, and that the mine’s developers have a poor track record with mining projects around the world. They know how vitally important Bristol Bay salmon runs are, and how impossible it would be to protect them from effects of Pebble.
They want to shout their message loud and clear, not sit through a dialogue of “what ifs” and “maybes.”
The problem is, an increase in volume doesn’t necessarily mean more people will listen. Polls after the Clean Water Initiative failed in August’s primary election showed a sizable chunk of people don’t believe Pebble is as large a risk as opponents say it is, or don’t believe the information that’s come out on either side.
That’s why even Pebble opponents should participate in the dialogue process.
If opponents are correct that this is all a sham to generate good PR for the Pebble Partnership — and they could well be right, since there’s no guarantee mine developers will listen to, much less include, anything that comes out of this process — then so be it. It’s still worth participating.
If opponents don’t join in, that makes good PR for Pebble, as well — here they are extending an olive branch, and their detractors won’t take it.
The dialogue’s coordinator has offered to have people sign a statement saying their participation in the dialogue process does not mean they support the mine. The Keystone Center that’s facilitating the process has a good reputation for independent, unbiased work. Center representatives say they’ll stand up to Pebble if mine backers try to play off the opposition’s participation in the process as meaning environmentalists support the mine.
And if Keystone’s Todd Bryan is right that the mine may be permitted no matter what the opposition says or does, having a seat at the table could give opponents a chance to help design the best mine possible. Granted, to them, no mine is the best mine, but if there’s unavoidably going to be one, why not try to make it the least damaging option?
Most importantly, mine opponents stand to gain an audience for their message if they participate in the process. They can make sure their side is represented, and the information showing Pebble’s danger isn’t ignored.
The Pebble Partnership sees the Keystone process as a tool to help convince the public to allow the mine. Opposition groups should view the Keystone process as a similarly powerful tool bent in the opposite direction.
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