Thanks for the perspective. I particularly agree with this.
I've also found my way into environmental compliance. From working in fisheries for several years, to working as a roughneck, and then into ecological/geological/environmental consulting and compliance the last decade. Most of the contracts I work on are very large and held by USACE and I work in close proximity with EPA. From what I've seen, USACE and EPA both seek technical contracts when they lack in expertise. Same with SOA.
At the end of the day, Pebble is just different from any other mining project by leaps and bounds. The containment pond alone would be 10 square miles and hold up to 10 billion tons of waste that will require treatment in perpetuity. All while sitting in extremely close proximity to two faults that have produced earthquakes up to 7.9 M within the last couple of decades. About 40% of all tailings ponds in the US have failed, and I don't believe any of those were even influenced by tectonic activity. I'm not an engineer, but when I look at that, it sure seems like more of a factor of 'when' that thing fails and not 'if'.
Now add in the complexity and economic value of the watershed which is also unlike anywhere else. If/when the pond fails, it will release to the watershed and gross amounts of contamination will travel all the way to Bristol Bay. Even if it just travels to Lake Illiamna, the impact on spawning grounds and nurseries will be irreversible. There are several numbers out there, but just the commercial fishery in Bristol Bay has a $1.5 to $2.2 billion annual revenue. I think it's safe to say the commercial sport hunting and fishing industries combined push on hundreds of millions annually. So how do you assign a bond on a resource that size that would be infinite if left alone? Let's just say 50 years of lost revenue plus inflation plus $20 billion minimum for cleanup and long term sampling. So a $150 to $200 billion bond, at minimum.
I'm pro development and I'm pro mining and drilling. There's no confusion where I get my power from, and I recognize I use rare metals that would be extracted by Pebble daily. My roughneck and coal mining buddies back in ND all think I have a Bernie sticker on my car while my environmental compliance coworkers think I drive my duramax to Trump rallies on the weekends. So I guess that tells me I'm doing a good job at looking at things from both sides. I work in environmental regulation and feel like our state does oil, gas, and mining extraction better than anywhere else in the world. But there are times when the juice is not worth the squeeze. And Pebble is the poster child IMO.
Pebble would almost certainly sacrifice a finite resource for an infinite one. This isn't simple reclamation. You can't reclaim tundra that's 10,000 years old and the consequences of the containment pond failing isn't just a lake being shut down to sport fishing.
"The wrong mine for the wrong place." - Senator Ted Stevens (R)
