Pebble Mine: Why a 34 vote loss is a huge win

October 19, 2011: After the ballots had been counted Monday evening, and it appeared voters of the Lake and Peninsula Borough had narrowly approved a controversial anti-mining initiative, the look on Bob Gillam's lawyers face said it all; they had their lunch eaten.

Even though the measure passed, and even though Gillam appeared to be rewarded for his half million dollar campaign investment, the narrow 34 vote win represented a huge loss for Gillam and his anti-mining crusade and a huge win for the Pebble Partnership.

Given the years of fear mongering fueled by Gillam's millions, this was a deck clearly stacked in his favor.

The initiative, which gives the Lake & Peninsula Borough veto power over development on state lands in an attempt to prevent a prospective mine in the borough, has been the epi-center of an intense debate in Southwest Alaska.

For the last four years the opponents of the mine, bankrolled by Gillam's wealth, have tried desperately to derail the mine from getting to the permitting stage. Before the mine would be given the green light to proceed with development, it must run the gauntlet of passing the strict guidelines of federal clean air and water laws, and a variety of other state and federal laws.

Aside from Gillam's blatant self serving interests, the danger of what he is doing to stop this project before it gets to the state's rigorous permitting process would make a mockery out of Alaska's ability to develop state lands. The land that Pebble sits on has been designated as state mining land for decades.

Attempting to halt this process, by ignoring the land use designation, the expense companies incur to get to the permitting process and the stringent permitting process itself, would create a precedent of uncertainty for potential developers of Alaska's resources.

After all, why invest in a prospective project if some rich guy is going to spend millions distilling fear and loathing about your organization and employees, and eventually shut down a completely legitimate public process?

Gillam has been quoted as saying that the jobs, income and improvements won't be worth it because everyone and everything in the region will be eradicated. He predicts miners will be running wild in local villages with booze, drugs and associated mayhem.

The ballot initiative, which was titled Save Our Salmon, was anticipated to win in a route. Gillam touted that 80% in the region opposed Pebble Mine and invested almost $500,000 of his money to fund the effort.

Instead, after the first three hundred votes, the tally was basically tied. In the end, the winning margin of less than three dozen votes was a sobering reminder to Gillam that the Beatles were right; money can't by you love.

In addition to cash, Gillam enlisted the support of a well respected religious leader, Archpriest Micheal Oleksa. During the campaign Oleksa appeared on countless advertisements decrying the potential Pebble Mine as sacreligious. However the enlistment of Father Oleksa wasn't without controversy.

In an email that was circulated by local residents, Oleksa can be read telling his superior that helping Gillam could be a windfall for the church. "I also foresee that, if we remain in close association with Mr. Gillam and we want, let us suppose, to build a church in Anchorage, he would loan us the funds at a very low interest rate and would donate generously to our project. Perhaps we could interest him in buying some land for us, or supporting an assisted living complex for our elders."

He describes Gillam as a "billionaire" who owns "eight airplanes, several homes and millions of dollars in stock...a real Madoff."

It's richly ironic Oleksa would invoke the name of the most infamous financial fraud artist in the world to describe Gillam, given the controversy surrounding Gillam's checkered past in Alaska's banking industry.

Throughout the email Oleksa states that the church wants to protect the land and respect it's high spiritual value. But then he makes a statement that highlights the need for the established public process to play out, instead of short circuiting the proposed project.

"We welcome development that can demonstrate an ability to preserve the earth and waters --show us a mine of this sort that has not destroyed its environment and we will welcome you," Oleksa wrote.

In Alaska, no mine is permitted unless it "can demonstrate an ability to preserve the earth and water."

So how can a developer demonstrate this ability, without having access to the state's stringent permitting process?

They can't.

In addition, the Oleksa email states that the position of his Diocese had "no political dimension, and we would not name any particular project or industry that we specifically oppose." However the subsequent television ads paid for by Gilliam, promoted Oleksa telling viewers that if the Pebble Mine was allowed to happen it would destroy everything for coming generations.

Meanwhile, the vote itself was little more than a boost for mining proponents by proving almost half of the local voters opposed the initiative. In all reality, the vote was much ado about nothing legally binding, because the initiative itself is unconstitutional.

In the next few months the courts will undoubtedly kick the initiative to the curb. Allowing local governments to have veto power over development of state lands would be usurping the state's constitutional authority to manage and develop those same lands.

The only reason the courts didn't strike it off the ballot before the election is traditionally courts are wary of intervening until the initiative or legislation becomes law and they actually have something to formally adjudicate. In short, there is no sense ruling on the legality of something before voters or lawmakers have passed it into law.

While Gillam's anti-mining group tried to put on the brave face for the media after their nail biting win, and stated the continued passionate opposition to the mine in the borough, the election figures speak for themselves.

If this was, as anti-mining supporters say, a referendum on the Pebble Mine, a majority of voters didn't seem to care enough to vote.

A real lack of passion one could say.

Out of 1,192 ballots mailed out, only 526, less than half, bothered to return them. The final tally was 280 for the initiative, and 234 against the initiative with a handful of ballots disallowed because the voters weren't residents of the borough. Reportedly these ballots included a relative of Gillams who submitted his ballot from Switzerland, and was determined by the election committee not to be an eligible voter.

At the end of a long night of vote counting, it must have been a quiet ride home on Gillam's private jet for his surrogates.