Is it true that some group of business people want to mine gold and copper in Alaska and leave toxic waste?

Question

Everyone I ask can not believe it, the story also said they plan a huge dam 20 miles long to hold the waste from reaching Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Answer 1

Pebble Creek Mine. In one of the drainages of Bristol Bay which is a hugely productive salmon fishing area. It is being headed by a Canadian mining company that is on record to their shareholders stating a few unsavory ideas.

The tailings would be piled up and left there. The tailings would have various heavy metals which would leach out. The proposed dam is supposed to retain that leach water.

Like most any modern low-assay gold mining operation, they'd use cyanide leaching to recovery the gold (like those eastern Nevada open mines). And,of course, cyanide is not good for anyone or anything's health.

While Bristol Bay is a large body of water and would provide a lot of dilution of any spills, the drainages that the mine is in could definitely be killed off for several years in the event of a spill, accident, or damn failure.

While it is possible to build damns that last 100 years, this wouldn't be constructed of concrete and steel but of tailings. And Alaska is a pretty seismically active place.

My last concern about it is that the bonds and insurance requirements placed on mining companies are vastly smaller than the potential clean-up costs. Look at ID and MT for examples of that. Or read Jared Diamond's "Collapse" if you want all the references and footnotes.

I suppose the other perspective would be that even though some mining in Alaska has already left behind heavy metals, nuclear material and lowered the pH enough to eliminate all plant growth in the area, those areas are small compared to the whole state. And that there would be various fairly well-paid jobs for people without professional skills - truck drivers, welders, etc - and as a state, we get excited about those projects.

But I don't feel that we shoud be trashing another area. There might 10-20 years of gold extraction and jobs followed by centuries of problems.

Answer 2

Uh ya they already started on that...and the dam is actually a bridge that will go all across alaska and guess who benefits from this? The politician who passed the bill will make a percentage of profits because he owns a share of the company which will be building the bridge. This is hearsay but sometimes rumors are true.

Answer 3

Wether there are unscrupulous people out there that would do such a thing is up for contention, but no business person in the world would anounce that sort of an intention. Sounds bogus to me.

Answer 4

You can't just leave toxic waste, the rest might be true, but there's no way they'd just leave toxic wast lying around. Despite what hippie liberals try to tell you.

Answer 5

I hadn't heard about the dam, but I did hear about the mining. Also, some people want to do more oil drilling and destroy the forests and tundra.

Answer 6

i don't no why do you care do you live in Alaska

Answer 7

probably, i kno someone wants to, bc it makes someone money