The Proposed Pebble Mine Puts People, Fish and Wildlife at Risk
Letters / Anchorage Daily News / January 6, 2006
Can Alaska be so generous as to give our state's mineral wealth to Canadian investors when it belongs to America? What will the Canadian company, Northern Dynasty, and its proposed Pebble mine do for Alaska, the Nushagak River inhabitants and ecology? What will the mine do to the wildlife, fish and ecology of the proposed Jay Hammond Wildlife Refuge?
Bristol Bay has more people, fish, wildlife and jobs, and is more accessible than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, yet how do we get people's attention to this fact? Nushagak River pollution could kill people, kill the largest salmon fishery in the world, and kill the animals that live off the habitat from the headwaters to the ocean.
We can't leave these issues to those with a vested interest to decide for us. Jobs are important, but saving people and a rich renewable food source from pollution, needs our best look.
-- Mike Sparks / Wasilla / Bristol Bay store owner and former commercial fisherman
