Alaska News

It's unfair to compare Pebble prospect to Red Dog Mine

With regard to Bruce C. Switzer's piece about Red Dog and Pebble mines ("Red Dog Mine problems offer small preview of Pebble," April 20), most of Cominco's early problems with water quality issues stemmed from inadequate pre-mine environmental studies. The studies done for an evolving permitting system, and in the light of present permitting, were inadequate.

In contrast, studies at Pebble are the most thorough yet done in Alaska for any rural project. Investigations of fish and game habitat, surface and subsurface hydrology and socioeconomic issues by the best investigators available have cost tens of millions of dollars.

Will there be unanticipated problems? Probably yes, but the commitment to solve those problems is also there.

Dr. Switzer apparently now agrees that Cominco is a quality environmental mining company and implies that Cominco left Pebble because of feared environmental issues. Those issues may have been a concern, but Cominco apparently left because Pebble as then known was not large or rich enough to mine profitably.

Northern Dynasty, a very large and successful exploration company, then found the ore material that shows Pebble to be one of the greatest resources of copper, gold and molybdenum in the world. At least to those in the industry, operation of the mine by Northern Dynasty alone was never a possibility.

Switzer then implies that Cominco is better qualified to mine Pebble than the current Pebble Partners, Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Mitsubishi and Dynasty. But Cominco's northernmost mines have been high grade massive sulfide bodies like Polaris and Red Dog; it has built and operated porphyry mines, but it is not at the cutting edge in porphyries. There are only three or four companies in the world that could now develop Pebble as now known. Anglo is one of them as is Rio Tinto. Cominco is somewhere down the list.

Other environmental issues raised by Switzer are not apt. Red Dog is a massive sulfide ore body containing hundreds of pounds of metal per ton; Pebble is a low sulfide ore with less than 20 pounds of copper per ton and only a couple percent of sulfide in total.

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Red Dog's rejects contain several percent of well-controlled zinc and other metals, while Pebble's silicate- rich tails will not contain hazardous amounts of metals--if that is Switzer's concern in raising the seismicity issue. Pebble and other large mines being planned are important enough to Alaska's future to discuss the issues in a more objective fashion.

Long-time mining activist Charles C. Hawley has a doctorate in geology and is a director of Truth About Pebble.

By CHARLES C. HAWLEY

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