Alaska court orders expedited printing of anti-Pebble project, ballot initiative

The massive Pebble gold-copper-moly project could be in serious trouble if the Alaska Clean Water Initiative makes it to Alaska’s primary election ballot in August 2008.

RENO, NV - 

An Alaska Superior Court judge Thursday ordered state officials to expedite printing of petition booklets for a proposed ballot initiative targeting the proposed Pebble gold mine.

Judge Fred Torrisi Wednesday overturned a decision by Alaska Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, denying the petition of Renewable Resources Coalition to place the Alaska Clean Water Initiative on the ballot.

If approved by Alaskan voters, the initiative would limit the "discharge or release of certain toxic pollutants on the lands and waters of the state, and by establishing management standards and other regulatory prescriptions to ensure that Alaska's waterways, streams, river and lakes, an important public asset, are not adversely impacted by new large scale metallic mineral mining operations and that such are appropriate regulated to assure no adverse effects on the state's clean waters."

The proposed initiative would prohibit authorizations, licenses and permits for releases or discharges of cyanide, sulfuric acid, their related compounds, and other toxic agencies "within any watershed utilized by humans for drinking water or by salmon in the spawning, rearing, migration, or propagation of the species."

Alaska Miners Association Executive Director Steve Borrell told reporters that "the issue is not clean water; it is stopping mining." He explained that since every stream in the state is classified for drinking water, mining operations couldn't be located within 1,000 feet of any stream. "Effectively this would eliminate large-scale mining in the state."

Attorneys for the Office of the Lt. Governor had filed pleadings with the court on Wednesday, claiming the state could not meet the October 29th deadline imposed by the court. Clean Water Initiative proponents want to circulate the initiative petitions at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention, which attracts aboriginal peoples from all over the state. All 40 Alaskan election districts must be represented by the signers of the petition.

The Renewable Resources Coalition has until January 15th to collect the required signatures to place the Clean Water Initiative on the August primary ballot. If enacted into law, the initiative would halt the development of the proposed Pebble project, considered one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry deposits in North America.

The project is located in the Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska, considered a prime sport fishery area. Mega-miner Anglo American and junior explorer Northern Dynasty Minerals have a joint venture agreement to develop the project. The project is at the pre-feasibility and pre-permitting stage.

The Pebble West portion of the project is believe to have measured and indicated resources of 18.8 billion pounds of copper, 31.3 million ounces of gold and 993 million pounds of molybdenum. The deeper Pebble East project now claims inferred resources of 42.6 million pounds of copper, 39.6 million ounces of gold, and 2.7 million pounds of moly.