The Battle for Bristol Bay - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 277

Gillam first heard of the mine in 2005 . Inspecting the site from his private plane, he
underwent a conversion. “ You don't have to be particularly smart to know that if you
take away the water, the fish go away,” Gillam told the WallStreetJournal.“I cannot sit
by and let this happen to my state.”
Said to be Alaska's only billionaire, Gillam funds a nonprofit organization called
the Renewable Resources Coalition , which runs anti-Pebble print and TV ads. He has
hired an army of attorneys, lobbyists, pollsters, hydrologists, geologists, and fisheries re-
searchers to build a scientific and legal case against the mine. His detractors estimate
that he spends about $3 million a year on his anti-Pebble effort and seek to portray him
as a rich man “throwing around his money … to protect his playground.” There is no
end to the conspiracy theories about him, and several websites, such as The Bob Gillam
Initiative to Kill Mining in Alaska, are dedicated to revealing the “real” Bob Gillam.
Even some of his supposed allies are suspicious of Gillam and have been trying to
distance themselves. His investment management firm, McKinley Capital, holds more
than $1 billion in mining stocks: when the firm bought over $7 million worth of shares
of Anglo American PLC (the 50 percent owner of PLP) in 2007, the pro-Pebble faction
snickered, while the mine's critics grew alarmed. Some began to wonder, paranoically,
whether Gillam might be a double agent for the mining industry, sowing confusion to
split the opposition. Or perhaps, they theorized, he is a cynical opportunist playing both
sides off each other for his own advantage. Only Gillam knows, and he declined to speak
to me.
In 2008, Gillam was pushing Measure 4, a public referendum to disallow any new large
metal mine from releasing chemicals that would damage salmonoid fish (a standard
not included in Alaskan law), and a vote was scheduled for August 26. Pebble support-
ers complained that the referendum was designed only to stop Pebble, though Gillam
denied it.
On August 20, polls showed that the two sides were neck and neck. That morning,
Governor Sarah Palin called a news conference with no specific agenda, during which
she said, “ Let me take my governor's hat off for just a minute here and tell
you—personally, Prop 4? I vote no on that.” Bedlam ensued. The pro-mining side ran
full-page ads featuring Palin's photograph and the word NO .
On August 26, 57 percent of Alaskans voted against Measure 4, defeating it. Oppon-
ents blamed Palin for tipping the balance. Alaskan law forbids officials from using state
resources to advocate for or against ballot initiatives. Tony Knowles, a former Demo-
cratic governor, charged that Palin broke the law by issuing her statement. “Being gov-
ernor is not a costume—you either are the governor or not,” he said. “he only reason
the press was there was that they were called by the governor.”