Big news from Alaska, as Anglo-American, one of two stakeholders in the Pebble Mine project, and one of the worlds largest mining companies, has pulled out, leaving the much smaller Northern Dynasty as the sole stakeholder. Anglo is taking a 300 million dollar bath on this, now the pressure should be put on Northern Dynasty to read the writing on the wall, and drop the project. investment carries risk, sometimes people lose their shorts. trying to build a huge open pit mine, in a tectonically active zone that regularly sees very powerful earthquakes, is just asking for trouble. it would be one thing, if this area was a empty, featureless, and uninhabited area, But this area contains 5 rivers, millions of acres of open space, and is the world's largest remaining fishery.
Big news from Alaska, as Anglo-American, one of two stakeholders in the Pebble Mine project, and one of the worlds largest mining companies, has pulled out, leaving the much smaller Northern Dynasty as the sole stakeholder. Anglo is taking a 300 million dollar bath on this, now the pressure should be put on Northern Dynasty to read the writing on the wall, and drop the project. investment carries risk, sometimes people lose their shorts. trying to build a huge open pit mine, in a tectonically active zone that regularly sees very powerful earthquakes, is just asking for trouble. it would be one thing, if this area was a empty, featureless, and uninhabited area, But this area contains 5 rivers, millions of acres of open space, and is the world's largest remaining fishery. It would be a very poor decision to put the established fisheries in jeopardy for at best 50 years of gold and other minerals. what jobs this mine would create, would be temporary. Anglo-American dropping out, is thus a big deal. However, it isn't a final victory. that will only come when Bristol Bay takes its rightful place in the National Park system as a national monument. Obama had Bristol Bay on his "Next up" list, after a number of Western areas when the Interior Department was considering adding national monuments in 2010. those were shot down, when the Republicans found out about the considerations and biatched and moaned and Lisa Murkowski threatened to propose exempting Alaska from the Antiquities Act. First the Act applies to every state, period. The Supreme Court has held repeatedly, and as recently as 2003, that the Presidents powers under the act are broad and clear. Congress' power is that of the purse, they can refuse to fund monuments and they can vote to eliminate them, but the states themselves cannot exempt themselves, the supremacy clause makes that clear. Truman's exemption of Wyoming in 1950 was a mistake, as was the provision in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation act limiting future Alaskan monuments to 5000 acres without congressional OK. Bristol Bay should become a national monument, period, so nothing like Pebble Mine can ever be developed there.