Largest Copper and Gold Mine Would Destroy Bristol Bay, Alaska

An international mining group is planning North America's largest copper and gold mine at headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska. Environmentalists are outraged, as this is a "vital ecosystem" for salmon and other species. The National Resource Defense Council explains:

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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Posted by Jennifer Lance at December 24, 2009 10:20 AM