Actor's disappointing role: Pebble shill

He's only acting, and I shouldn't be disappointed. I got my movie ticket's worth. But that's why we buy tickets in the first place: We want to believe even though we know, intellectually, it's all pretend.

Mr. Studi has a new role. He's been hired by the Pebble Partnership to tour villages in the Bristol Bay region and pose as one of their own to sell them enough toxicity to ruin their way of life. The Lake and Peninsula Borough began voting by mail on the Save Our Salmon ballot initiative, which has survived legal challenges from proponents of the Pebble mine. The initiative is simple. It states that any resource extraction development using more than 640 acres of land that would adversely affect anadromous waters (waters already known to be salmon habitat) would require a permit from the Lake and Peninsula Borough before the state and federal permits could go through.

If a project isn't going to harm salmon, the Pebble Partnership should have nothing to fear.

I have been called and emailed this week by folks living in the Bristol Bay region. They have sent me the pre-vote fliers coming into their mailboxes from the Pebble Partnership. I guess if the courts and truth aren't on your side, your last recourse to win the game is to lie -- and lie they did. They have tried to scare voters by telling them opponents of the mine are taking away their children's future, that they won't have money for schools, that they will lose their subsistence hunting and fishing rights, that they won't be able to build roads or houses, schools or hospitals.

It's a classic scorched-earth campaign tactic: Heap lie upon lie and never let up.

"They don't even have a plan yet" has been one of their greatest lies. More than 2,000 pages of plans were submitted to the state as part of Pebble's 2006 water withdrawal applications alone. The Upper Talarik Creek and Koktuli River could see 100 percent of their water used up by Pebble. All told, Northern Dynasty Minerals has applied for the rights to almost 35 billion gallons of ground and surface water per year. That amount is four times the annual usage of the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility. When Northern Dynasty put its shares of the project up for sale earlier this year, it released its plan for the Pebble mine. Oops. You can imagine that this put it in an awkward situation with its partner, Anglo-American, which loudly claimed that no such plan existed.

An open pit mine and tailing ponds held back by earthen dams hundreds of feet high would exist in an area where earthquakes rattle from the Lake Clark, Castle Mountain and Denali fault lines. It's not just an abstract number on the Richter scale. Local residents feel it. And you don't have to go back to the 9.2 Good Friday earthquake of 1964. There was a 7.9 in 2002. One unforeseen accident could mean a poisoned fishery, the eradication of salmon and the loss of thousands of already-existing renewable jobs.

Why shouldn't residents of the borough have a voice? It's their destiny at stake. If a mine of this size were going in next to your house and threatening your livelihood, wouldn't you want a say? If project managers told you they planned to blow off 50,000 one-ton detonations a year in your backyard, how many moose do you think would stick around for hunting season?

The willingness to paint anyone opposed to Pebble mine as "Flat Earthers" or anti-development has come easy. I would remind those people that the late Sen. Ted Stevens was never accused of being anti-development but was firmly opposed to the Pebble mine. He said he would do all he could to stall and stop it.

The worst pro-Pebble propagandists have accused opponents of being pro-incest and pro-domestic violence. Yes, really, they've gone that far, insinuating that Pebble will save rural Alaskans from themselves -- without mining jobs, they'll beat their partners and molest their children. Got racism?

Earlier this week, Father Michael Oleksa's private emails were hijacked and published in an effort to drum up a controversy. Father Oleksa has always been against the Pebble mine. Perhaps he takes seriously the obligation to be a good steward of the Earth. Preserving and protecting the Bristol Bay fishery lines up with that old parable: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. If Pebble mine is developed, there might not be any fish left to feed anyone.

That Father Oleksa's position lined up with billionaire Bob Gillam's and that he privately emailed his colleagues about the possibility of Gillam's help in financing a new village church is certainly not controversial. Breaking news: Churches spend a vast amount of time seeking money so they can carry out their mission.

The people of Bristol Bay have a choice. They can believe the poison handed to them from a Hollywood Indian, a co-opted borough mayor in Glen Alsworth and the disgraced Matthew Nikolai, or trust themselves to defend their heritage, their jobs and their way of life.

Shannyn Moore is host of "The Shannyn Moore Show" on KOAN 1020 AM and 95.5 FM radio, and the television show "Moore Up North" on KYES Channel 5.