The Battle for Bristol Bay - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 279

predicted that drilling there would result in at least one major oil spill. Environmental
groups such as the World Wildlife Fund charge that it makes “no sense” to drill in Bris-
tol Bay and argue that large oil and gas rigs could pollute the bay's $2 billion fishery,
disrupt the migratory patterns of salmon, and disturb whales and migrating birds.
On March 31, 2010, President Barack Obama proposed opening vast new areas on
the East and West Coasts, and in the Gulf of Mexico, to oil and gas drilling. Under the
plan, the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in Alaska would be opened to drilling, while Bris-
tol Bay would be designated as a sanctuary in which no drilling would be allowed. Three
weeks after the president's controversial announcement, the Deepwater Horizon, an ex-
ploratory drill rig leased by BP, exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, creating the
largest oil spill in US history and touching off a furor over offshore drilling.
As of this writing, it remains unclear if Obama's proposal will be enacted, or whether
the BP disaster in the Gulf will have any impact on oil, gas, or mineral exploration in
Alaska. Over the summer of 2010, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA administrat-
or Lisa Jackson flew to Alaska on fact-finding trips and held meetings with proponents
and opponents of the Pebble mine, though they were careful not to tip their hands.
Unless the federal government steps in, Pebble will live or die by the sixty-seven state
and federal permits it is required to get. The mine site lies on state land (Shively re-
fused to speculate about what sort of taxes or fees PLP would pay to mine the claim).
State mining coordinator Tom Craford said that while acid rock drainage and metal
leaching are “a major issue of concern” if the mine is permitted, PLP's exploration of the
site by about two hundred people a day “will have no significant impact on fisheries.”
he Alaska Department of Natural Resources is in charge of permitting mines, and only
rarely does that agency not grant permits. Critics note the “revolving door” of person-
nel between regulatory agencies and mining concerns, which, the critics say, stacks the
deck in favor of miners.
“Industry has hijacked the regulatory process,” snorts Carol Ann Woody , the former
USGS fish biologist. “The state's permitting process is set up to permit.I worked on
about thirty permits in my career at USGS. Once they file their Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) for Pebble, we'll get their environmental data, but by then it will be
game over. As far as I know, there has never been a mine that filed an EIS that was not
permitted.”
Over a halibut lunch in Anchorage, John Shively tilted his head to one side, as if
something had just occurred to him, and said, “Alaska is a natural resource state. It's
what we do here. I don't want to wreck things in the environment, but I don't believe
our resources should be locked up forever, either. We'd never trade fish for mining. Our
challenge is to see them coexist, and I believe we can do it. There's no sense in sacrificing
one resource for another.”