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 n southwestern Alaska, Bristol Bay's cool, shallow waters lap against a cushion of verdant green tundra, shot through with streams and rivers. Each spring and summer, these waters run thick with salmon. Grizzlies, wolves, eagles, beluga whales and orcas come here to feast, as millions upon millions of fish struggle upstream to spawn in the clear waters of their birth. The massive wild salmon runs are the linchpin of this nearly untouched ecosystem. But if foreign mining interests get their way, the salmon runs could wither -- and take down the entire ecosystem with them.
An international mining consortium, including Mitsubishi, Rio Tinto, Northern Dynasty and Anglo American, is planning to build North America's largest gold and copper mine in the wildlife-rich headwaters of Bristol Bay. "Sacrificing this vital ecosystem to mining would be disastrous not only to salmon but to an array of wildlife species that depend on those salmon," says attorney Andrew Wetzler, director of NRDC's Wildlife Conservation Project. "That's why we're joining forces with Native groups and other local organizations to oppose such a shortsighted scheme. NRDC's BioGems Defenders will help bring national attention to the struggle."
The only way to extract the low-grade ore from the region would be to use a brutal and pollution-prone technique known as hard-rock mining, which includes powerful explosives and massive drilling equipment. At one of the proposed mines in Pebble, a remote, roadless area sandwiched between two national parks, spongy, lake-studded tundra would be scraped away, leaving a yawning two-mile-wide, 2,000-foot-deep pit in its place. This would be the largest open-pit mine in the world -- wide enough to line up nine of the world's longest cruise ships end to end and deep enough to swallow the Empire State Building. At a second mine, explosives would be used to create a series of underground cave-ins to extract ore.
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“This would be the largest open-pit mine in the world -- wide enough to line up nine of the world's longest cruise ships end to end and deep enough to swallow the Empire State Building.”
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