The Battle for Bristol Bay - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 270

Native mayor. Later, they worked together in community action organizations that
sponsored rural Alaskan regional development corporations. For about eight years in
the late 1970s and early 1980s, Shively worked at NANA (formerly the Northwest Arc-
tic Native Association), one of thirteen for-profit Native corporations, where he edu-
cated shareholders about the landmark $1 billion Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
of 1971, which conveyed some 44 million acres to Native corporations to resolve dis-
putes over the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Shively spent a lot of time in villages and rur-
al areas, teaching people how to empower themselves. Shively served as chief of staff
to Governor Bill Sheffield, a Democrat (in 1985, Shively resigned under a cloud, while
Sheffield narrowly avoided being impeached for alleged perjury over an office lease).
Shively's wife is an environmental writer and organic farmer, and they have an adopted
Native Alaskan daughter. All of which seems to peg Shively pretty firmly in the “hippie
Left” camp. But there is a zealous side to his activism, dedicated to bringing Natives into
the mainstream white world.
Before taking the job at PLP, Shively was working for the Holland America cruise
line and was contemplating a quiet retirement. “If [PLP] had wanted to hire a mining
guy, they could have done that. I admit I don't know much about metals. But one of the
skills I do have is negotiating,” Shively said. In the early 1980s, while working for NANA,
Shively led the negotiations that resulted in the permitting of Red Dog, the largest zinc
mine in the world, which is in the Brooks Range of northwestern Alaska. NANA's part-
ner in the deal was Cominco, the Canadian mineral company that originally developed
Pebble. “Red Dog created a lot of Native jobs. It was one of the highlights of my career,”
Shively said. “My hope is that maybe we can do the same thing at Pebble. There's just
not a lot of economic opportunity in rural Alaska. To me, this project is about improv-
ing people's lives.”
From 2001 to 2007, federal environmental regulators listed Red Dog as the worst
toxic polluter in the United States for six years in a row. Much of that pollution was
mined waste rock, which is strictly regulated to prevent toxic metals from leaching into
the ground and water. (In 2009, the EPA would fine Teck Alaska Inc., Red Dog's operat-
or, $120,000 for other cases of water pollution.) “Well, no question, there have certainly
been some of those issues,” Shively replied, happy to discuss this touchy subject. “There
was a case of acid-mine drainage when we first opened Red Dog. But it is safe and being
tested now. That area never supported fish before, and now there are actually fish in Red
Dog Creek.”
But what happens if there is a toxic spill at Pebble, near the headwaters of two of
Bristol Bay's most important salmon rivers? I asked. Wouldn't that have far worse con-
sequences than what happened at Red Dog?