Backers of Alaska mining initiative say fight is not over
Published Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE -- Luki Akelkok thinks he knows why Alaska voters failed to pass the Clean Water Initiative in Tuesday's statewide primary.
"Money talks and everyone got brainwashed," said the 71-year-old lifelong resident of Bristol Bay. "I knew it was going to fail because people got bought off."
One day after voters failed to pass Ballot Measure 4, initiative supporters were regrouping Wednesday, trying to come up with strategy for fighting the mining industry and the Pebble Mine, a huge copper and gold deposit in Southwest Alaska near the world's most productive wild salmon streams.
With nearly all the vote counted Wednesday, Ballot Measure 4 failed with more than 57 percent of voters opposed.
Members of Alaskans for Clean Water, the Bristol Bay Alliance and the Renewable Resources Coalition said at the very least the fight over Ballot Measure 4 helped put the issue of Pebble before the public.
The next step is reaching out to the "pale green" Alaskans, the ones who favor responsible resource development, and provide them with accurate information, said Pat Flatley, outreach coordinator for the Bristol Bay Alliance.
"We've identified the folks that are very concerned about the Bristol Bay watershed and the clean water and the fish," Flatley said. "We believe they are savvy people and tired of the rhetoric and the fibs on both sides and the emotion."
In the end, rhetoric overruled common sense, said Dave Atcheson with the Renewable Resources Foundation, the education arm of the group promoting Ballot Measure 4.
"I think they had a campaign of fear and clouded the issues with things that weren't true, mainly that mines would be shut down," he said. "Really, all it said was that you can't put certain toxins into salmon streams."
Atcheson said their side needs to get back to a grassroots campaign to fight the large amounts of money spent by foreign mining conglomerates "to convince people that something evil was going to happen, that jobs would be lost and that wasn't the case."
Records filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission shows that Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown received more than $7 million in the months leading up to the primary, most of it coming from industry group Council of Alaska Producers.
On the other side, an Alexandria, Va.-based group called Americans for Job Security provided $1.2 million to Alaskans for Clean Water. The group does not have to disclose where it gets its money.
Bristol Bay lodge owner and Anchorage businessman Robert Gillam also donated more than half a million dollars to Alaskans for Clean Water.
Art Hackney, the ballot measure's main sponsor, said opponents spent closer to $15 million to defeat the measure. His side spent less than $3 million, he said.
Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association, said claims being made by the other side, including how much money was spent to defeat the initiative, are "hogwash."
He accused the other side of not being upfront with where it got its money.
"It is for sure the monies being spent on that side did not get reported properly," he said.
Borell said that it was an "absolute travesty" how Alaskans for Clean Water and other groups have portrayed the Pebble Mine, maligning the project and scaring people away.
"The lies that were spread were incredible," he said.
Even so, Borell said voters figured out one important thing about Ballot Measure 4.
"They understood that the thing was not clear. Nobody could really say what the impact would be," he said.
Community Discussion
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Pale Green!! I like it. Some of these folks are posting after these prop 4 letters and news stories.
Sounds like a good plan. We all need more info on the science of the Pebble Mine. I think that could change a few peoplies minds. A few less slogans and more hard info.
I wasn't bought off. I voted "no" due to questioning the incomplete legal wording process of Ballot Measure 4. Many others voted "no" for the same reason. As it was written it would of been a long drawn out court process. All the Ballot Measures this year was poorly written. I'll vote for a clean water Ballot Measure if the legal language in it is clear and concise. So the Ballot Measure can become law "without" the court process and cost to clean up the language. The initiative supporters need to focus on the legal terms to clarify it. And to be sure it meets or exceeds laws on the books, thier time lines and any future laws that are on the books that relate to it. My pet peeve is Ballot Measures that get passed but end up in court over issuses not addressed in the Ballot Measure. Close the barn door first to avoid court.
How much you want to bet this discussion will be going on thirty years from now and the mine still won't be developed. How many people took the time to look at the mining regulations and clean water regulations in this State. This wasn't about Pebble, it was about all mining in this State.
Having water come out of a mine cleaner than it went in , what sense is that. Maybe they mines could have recycled the water and sold it on the side in bottles. A secondary industry. Sell it in pale green bottles and call it cleanie greenie.
Hello! The problem with ballot initiative 4 is that we already have laws on the books. They're clear and defined. The so-called "clean water initiative" takes clearly defined law and deliberately makes it vague. As P_Davenport has pointed out, had this become law, every new mine would end up in court fighting over terms as simple as "what is a toxin". The state has already defined everything, and has stringent rules. See http://www.dec.state.ak.us/water/wqsar/w...
You can't even dump a pickup truck bed full of rocks in a stream without an environmental assessment and a permit. Ask this Anchorage man http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf... who faces $80 million dollars in fines for tinkering with a wetland and stream on his own property. Why do we need another layer of red tape, particularly when there's no evidence the laws we have already are not working? If this ballot initiative were to be passed, it would be used to shut down all mining just as the classification of polar bears as a "threatened" species is now being used to shut down oil exploration and extraction. Enviro-fascists will do everything they can to force us all to embrace their green heaven. Not in my house!
I will certainly agree that there were problems with measure #4. In fact, I voted against it because I believe it to have been poorly implemented. However, I think the idea, the basic concept, was a sound one. Keep toxins out of fish-spawning streams.
As far as Pebble goes, I think it is a disaster waiting to happen. It will not benefit myself or the majority of the State, only those lucky enough to get jobs or be shareholders of certain Native corporations, and it has the potential to ruin one of Alaska's great resources.
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