http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=alr_onlineforum

Mining companies pretending they care about the welfare of natives would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Indigenous peoples all over the planet have been/are being effed over by megacorporations, in concert with governments, so valuable resources can be extracted.

The US government STILL hasn’t compensated the Sioux for the theft of the Paha Sapa (Black Hills) which are theirs by treaty (has the US ever made a treaty with the First People that has NOT been broken?). The reason is that the Lakota, Minneconja, and other Sioux tribes refuse to take money for the mountains. They believe future generations would never forgive them.Of course, there’s gold in them thar hills. Elsewhere, it took only ONE year for a mountain in Brasil to be turned into a giant hole in the ground, once gold was discovered. And this was ages ago, when gold was worth a couple hundred dollars an ounce.

Meanwhile, I know someone who finds pennies so annoying that he used to throw them in the trash. I convinced him that, if he must dispose of them, to do so in the recycling, with the other household metal. I’m done ranting for the time being. I just wanted you to know there are many Outsiders who care about Bristol Bay, and not all of us are Washingtonians with fishing permits.

People such as yourself who have a passionate desire to deal with our situation in a reasoned and knowledgable way are unfortunately too few and too easily ignored. I reside on a notch lower even than that simply because I have chosen to take the global perspective since I have so few local roots and because I am half fox and half hen.

All that said, there are ways in which a Pebble mine could occur that would not actually endanger the fisheries, the spawning grounds, or the migration routes of the salmon. But they are considerably more expensive to implement and therefore change the profit equation. Or what the financial interests like to obscure by using terms and calculations such as the Internal Rate of Return On Investment to obscure and redecorate the proposal to spend a pot of money to return a lake of money.

I doubt if I can do anything that will help the situation with Pebble. As it stands, the game is mostly fixed. This EPA look might help some but unless the next elections are a watershed event for progressive politics I am unable to be optimistic.

Thank you for the insights.

This is very important to me.
The things I brought up are real and abiding- they are also the basis for mining interests to pooh-pooh the salmon fishery. Somewhere or other I have a link to a set of arguments made by mining attorney(s) shredding the value of the fishery- makes my blood pressure go so high I almost expire but will have to go find em and share em because that is what we’re up against.
The picture in the area for local residents is an important piece of the whole and we do ourselves no favors ignoring the downsides-esp as the mining industry is working day and night to exploit them while the state and all snooze instead of doing their dang jobs.

KN rightfully pushes for more detail- here’s some:
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While what stays in the area is relatively small, the overall BB salmon fishery generates 4.1-5.4 billion/yr in all economic activity associated with it by current estimates
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/how-many-billions-does-bristol-bays-salmon-fishery-pump-economy
so the argument that the whole shebang, if properly cared for, may continue to provide value , while not on par with the proposed mine in dollars, is certainly on a level which makes it considerably more than a gnat to be brushed off by mining interests, especially in the longer term.
14K employed in the total fishery well exceeds the 1+K assumed to be employed in first 25 years of the proposed mine and has a value which cannot be understated- even though not nearly enough of that payroll lands in the region.
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“Northern Dynasty Minerals, Ltd. estimates that Pebble contains over $300 billion worth of recoverable metals at early 2010 prices”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Mine
how do you knock that promise of that kind of money out of people’s eyes and get their feet back on the ground- about food, clean water, and the like?

The urban farmers I’ve asked have stated that there is no need to go heavier than 4 mil. However, they may not have the same wind issues we do at our little swamp at the foot of the Hillside (it’s like a wind tunnel between Seward Hwy and Lake Otis).

It’s actually good that I have enough plastic left over to completely cover the hoop house if the current plastic gets thrashed.