Ok I have tried to keep this whole subject out of the forum but I can't keep my mouth shut when I feel so strongly about something as I do this so here it is the pebbel gold project suppose to be the biggest open pit mine in the world right above Lake Illiamna at the ehad waters of oen of the best wild rainbow trout streams in the world and said streams flow all the way down into the Nushagak river the biggest river to feed Bristol Bay and it's world famous salmon fishery.
The first few post are moved from another post where they were off topic

were trying real hard to keep them darn mines out of this country right now!!
_________________________
Hupurest Hupurest
"The Alaskan Assassin"
trapper
i say dig it up and get out the gold....it is just a swamp anyways..
it would provide lots of job opportunities, even for grandkids,
AND they are sensitive to the subsistence life style..
plus it would be good duck hunting on that tailing pond.
_________________________
For Sale: French Military rifle, NEVER FIRED, only dropped ONCE


otterman
Hup It is far from a swamp not to mention if that tailing pond dam breaks all the nasty stuff flows right down the river I get all my fish out of. I grew up in minning country playing football on fields with no grass unable to fish out of a crystal clear river clear because no alage even grew in it. No they can keep that gold right were it is as far as I am concerned. In the end if they dig, it will be like any other big project in Ak the bulk of the employment will go to people who do not even live in the state let alone the region IMO. It is funny but not surprising how the people who don't have it in there back yard are all for it and those of us who will have to live with the results are not.

Hupurest
"The Alaskan Assassin"
trapper

Otter,i was only kidding, I guess it was hard to relay my sacrcasm through the typing...
I am not for it either, I stand with Holly Wysoki on this one..

I agree they will trash the crap out of it, rape the land, kill the fish, and leave it a disaster.
I thinkeveryone is together on this one...
where is the sierra club when you need them for something legit.
_________________________

Top Jimmy
trapper

Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 534
Loc: Alaska, USA
Otterman,
First off, we are off topic here, so maybe we should move this.
And, I do have two (three if you count Pogo near Delta) in my back yard, but then it is a bit more urban that yours.....
If that find is as big as they say, they will find a way to make it work. Most likely, they will just have to high grade the ore and ship it out to be processed someplace else, and not in your back yard. Not sure if that will exclude going open pit or not. I knew a Mine on the top of a mountain in Canada, that flew their mine ore off the top of a mountain in a Flying Guppy, so they will find a way. Maybe load barges and out and around to some other location.

-TJ
_________________________
Alaskan. . . . . . . the Net Man you don't want to have!

If everything seems to be going right, you obviously don't know what going on.
otterman
OK so we are off topic isn't the first post to go sideways wont be the last I can move it if everyone would prefer let me or one of the other mods know.
The problem is the gold is very very fine I wont try to say how much soil they have to remove to get one ounce cause I don't remember but it is alot. Shaft mining is not really an option at this time anyway. Shipping all that dirt they claim isn't either but we will see.
Hupurest this thing strikes a nerve with me so I did miss your sarcasim. Holly is actually part of my wifes extended family her dad is one heck of a trapper and the old man you see just nodding his head in the one commercial is my father in law this is one of them thing the entire family is in agreement on
_________________________

Thanks Otterman. I didn't want to hijack the cabin thred.

I am sure this will stir up some debate, but lets keep it civil. With such a young state, this comes up a bunch when the oil, gold, timber, fish, or whatever is in someone's back yard, and I am sure the debate will not end anytime soon.

-TJ

I figured it was touchy for ya... it is touchy for me too..
like you said a shaft would be different, but to tear it all up hundreds of feet deep, and who knows how wide is nuts..
then the arsenic, mercury etc.... no way.

if it was in palmer or fbks then dig it up I say..but not out there.

holly wysoki is pretty,and she fishes and traps,,is she single????

LOL single but taken I take it you only know her from the TV adds.
In nut shell I don't trust a company coming in here that can go back to Canada and hide after they screw everything up. If that river dies we don't loose just our fish but our mink,& otter and I imagine our beaver and pretty much anything else that tries to make a living off the river. the impact has the potential to be huge. You are talking hundreds of river miles with one river dumping into another into another and then one more and into the Bay it would effect the entire region between Lake Illiamna West to the Tikchik lakes state park that entire country flows into the Nushagak

yeah, just the commercial and the news...

I SAY "MINE IT" but under the right conditions- It is a Gold, Molybdenum, and Copper Mine. According to the website there is about 42.1 million oz. of gold, 1.35 billion pounds of Molybdenum and 24.7 billion pounds of Copper.
This project should be able to go into production once all the environmental issues are sorted out and the company creates their final mining plan, It will be watched like a hawk by everyone just like the Kensington Gold Mine Project in Juneau. There are many regulations that will need to be followed both at the State and Federal levels for this mine to get into production.
As for them just dumping waste into the streams surrounding the mine, I highly doubt that is going to happen. The water that is leaving the mine will have to be treated before entering the wild again. Especially the way that it is being watched and by how hard it is being fought. Like was said above, this isnt Fairbanks. The water that will be leaving that mine will have to be treated, through a waste water treatment facility and those are regulated by my agencies.
It will be a great benefit to the surrounding communities economics. It will benefit everyone in the communities.

I can say as a lifelong Alaskan that the Kensington Project has benefit the communities surrounding Juneau greatly and it is being fought about as hard as the Pebble Project. This project is protecting the environment completly. I mean, heck when there werent any environmental standards to meet in Juneau during the days of the AJ and Treadwell Mines they just dumped their tailings into the ocean. That is what Juneau is built on today pretty much. The trees have grown back, the fish and wildlife are still here.

Just my two sense though, I also think that people should wait to completly judge this project until the entire mine plan is completed and they look to get their final permits.

Jake

Well I am also against it. I have a pretty fair background in geology and I have no doubt that Northern Dynasty INTENDS to do no harm. Nevertheless, there is absolutely no way on God's earth they are going to prevent toxins from getting into the ground water. It won't take a seismic event or anything cataclysmic, just the slow power of time, pressure, and chemicals. Just a little leak is all it needs.

Now I'm a couple hundred air miles away from Pebble but the Donlin Creek mine is within a hundred miles of me. For the last month they have been running two helos all day every day. They have a crew in the woods north of here a few miles digging peat. They are sling-loading huges boxes of peat out of here. They are trying to determine whether there is enough peat to burn to create electricity to run Donlin Creek mine. I hope not for several reasons. I won't launch into those. Suffice it to say I am opposed to both projects.

We have a large gold mine upstream on the Nixon Fork. It's been there quite a while....decades and the fish are just beginning to come back in that stream a little bit. They were eliminated many years ago by just a small mining operation using cyanide.

I'm not opposed to mining in general or development. But I think it's short-sighted and bad judgement to risk a world-class renewable resource that could be viable into infinity for the dubious benefits of a few million in gold now.

Jamill put your location in your profile please, Dobbins requires it.

The beaurocrats have a way of sugar-coating everything and making you think it'll be okay. If there's lots of money to be made you're probly going to get screwed. Folks can hide behind corporations and get away with practically anything. Just hope there's enough environmentalists involved to save your butt. I better get up there fast and catch a rainbow 'fore they're gone.

yup Gary as I understand it they plan on taking their water off one of the premeir wild trout streams so we should mine at the cost of giving up something like that once they start taking that water it will shrink the size of that little river in a hurry. Not to mention I don't think I care to fly back from Anchorage and see a hole so big they say it will be visible with the naked eye from the moonthe dam they plan to build to hold the tailings pond will be over three miles long and 700 feet high it is one heck of alot more then the Kennsington that is for sure. Like I said I grew up in mine country silver and lead for the most part I left there for a reason don't care to go back unless I am really there if you get what I mean.

I have a son who is bound and deteremined to own his own Bristol Bay Drift permit someday like many other young men out here it is their dream. Are we willing to rip the dreams & heart right out of the culture of these young men? We have enough problems caused by loss of identity of the young Yupik men out here we certainly dont need anymore. We will not see much local hire up there we see some now but once they need more technically educated people most of the locals will be sitting on the sidelines.

I grew up in the NWT and Yellowknife was founded on gold mines. The companies pulled the gold out of the ground until finally the last company to own the holdings goes belly up. Now we discover what a time bomb those old mines are, and there is no one left standing to pick up the costs. Major contamination at multiple sites and the taxpayers are left to pick up the clean up costs. As for advantages yes the NWT received royalties, which ended up being far less than the clean up costs, Yes jobs were created, but mostly for outside miners that were brought in. There were few jobs created for the aboriginal population and their lifestyle was radically changed and not for the better.

Now the big play up there is diamond mines. Things have changed both environmentally and local employment wise but time will tell how much. Unfortunately Canadian mining companies are some of the worse offenders in the mining industry so heads up.

just remember this discussion when George W. Bush comes up there to rape the arctic for about six months supply of oil.the caribou on both sides of the border will be affected as well as a lot of other things.

I think you need to learn some facts about caribou and the oil pipeline. It's been over 35 years now that we've been waiting for all the doom and gloom that was predicted from drilling and pipeline activities on the north slope. Perhaps you should consider separating your politics from environmental issues. As far as the oil industry is concerned I think Alaska has enough historical record that indicates the industry can be trusted to perform well as long as there is monitoring. I don't think we can say that about mining.

Yea, they will be affected alright. They will have shade to lay in the few months that they are in that area. I see how bad the pipeline bothers the caribou on the North Slope. they don't pay it any mind when they go by, unless they lay in the shade under it.

That pipeline isn't even close to what that mine is. That pipeline isn't going to leave toxic waste for years to come after they are all said and done. The pipeline isn't going to destroy a huge water shed when it starts to leak it's toxins.

So what is it the pipeline is going to do to hurt the caribou???

i didn't say the gold mine was a good idea.i agree with you on that.i'm just saying they should be very careful about development of any kind in sensitive areas.i should think by the way you are talking about preserving your area(and i agree about that)that leaving an area alone that is a preserve already would be a good thing.there is lots of oil and gas development in my area and they want to do more in some very sensitive areas here.they ruin the groundwater quality here even though they are heavily regulated.money talks.it is necessary,but weighing the costs is not unreasonable.not trying to pick a fight.don't want to be misunderstood either.

Absolutely they should be careful in sensitive areas. We are all for that. The oil companies have shown they can do that. It's in their best interest to be careful.

If you are talking about development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when you say "leaving an area alone that is a preserve already", then I might guess you've not seen the area that drilling has been proposed. As for polluting ground water, I doubt there is much chance in ANWR. The soils are frozen just below the surface and won't accept much in the way of fluids. At depth that might happen. Heck I'm hundreds of miles south of ANWR and I can take a shovel tonight and scrape the moss off the ground in my front yard and have solid ice right at the surface. It's always there.

Sure we want to be careful with the environment. We live in it, off of it, and with it. At the same time it makes complete sense to develop the oil in ANWR for the entire country. It makes economic sense and national security sense. The same two things can't be said about Pebble mine.

I sure am glad that there are companies that want to come to Alaska and build mines, and also care about the environment while providing jobs and making many contributions to the local economies. I believe the Peddle project is a good project that is unfairly judged becuase of all the publicity it is getting. I also kind there are many people that just dont want to see change so they are against it.
As a lifelong Alaskan who went away to school and got a Geology and Geography degree. I always wanted to come back to Alaska and needed a well paying job and the mining industry offers that. I think that it is very closed minded to say "We will not see much local hire up there we see some now but once they need more technically educated people most of the locals will be sitting on the sidelines." I personally think that maybe it is time for people to start pushing the idea that kids need to go off to school and get degrees and further there education. Then they will be able to return home to good jobs.
Maybe it is time for your communities to get onboard with the companies involved in the Pebble Project (Northern Dynesty & Anglo American) to get a training program going for locals to become educated/ qualified for the many jobs that are going to be out there.
I think that people need to give this project a realistic chance and think about the young kids of Alaska like myself and some of my friends who are just getting into the workforce and need well paying jobs to be able to enjoy the sports/ hobbies we love dearly. If we dont have good jobs we arent going to be able to afford a reasonable way of life.
As a resident of Juneau all my life I have lived in and around mining too, I have nothing but good things to say about the mining companies near Juneau. They provide good jobs, protect the environment, and produce large amounts of Ore from the ground. I Hope there is a large mine at Pebble Soon.

Jake

You're sure right about training for kids. Most in rural communities are on a dead-end course and will spend their entire lives right where they were born, wishing they knew how to do something productive.

Jake,

Your post brings up a point. In Delta, they teamed up with the Pebble folks to open a mine training center there to train folks to work in the mine in Delta and one ones here in Fairbanks. Might be something to look at doing one in Dillingham, or even flying guys to Delta to learn.

I spoke with one of the guys that was behind that and there is a big need for qualified people not only in Alaska, but all over the lower 48 as well. Due to the turn down in prices, and the restrictions on mines placed after a lot of what has been discussed here happend, there has been no recruitment and training of qualified people over the years, and now there is a huge shortage as most of the people still around are now close to, if not already, retired. There is definately a need for people and if we can do it here, the better.

-TJ