North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

A broad spectrum of Alaskans who support the proposed Pebble mine have formed a non-profit organization to inform the public about Northern Dynasty's copper-gold project in the Bristol Bay region. Truth About Pebble was officially launched at a meeting of the Resource Development Council in Anchorage Jan. 18 with speeches by three of the new organization's board members.

Truth About Pebble's chairman, Dick Cattanach, who is executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Alaska, told the RDC that the opposition to Pebble reminds him of the "distortions and misrepresentations" in the campaign against opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, except that the anti-ANWR campaign is mainly based outside Alaska. Cattanach said he never expected to see such activities happening within the state.

"I thought that there should be a fair and level playing ground for the facts to come out and decisions to be made," Cattanach said. "We're dealing with facts, not hyperbole. We just want the facts to be known and people to make an intelligent, conscious decision," he added. Truth About Pebble's members are Alaskans who believe that the permitting process should be allowed to work, Cattanach told the RDC.

"We believe that if the project survives the permitting process - and that's an if - it will provide economic opportunities to a large group of Alaskans that have little hope for jobs in that area," Cattanach said. "We believe, and this is very important for many of us, that not allowing the project to go forward through the permitting stage will send a chilling message to all companies looking to do business in Alaska," he added.

Phillips: most of Alaska's wealth has come from resources

Ever since it became a U.S. territory in 1912, most of Alaska's wealth has come from the development of natural resources, Truth About Pebble's vice chairman, Gail Phillips, told the RDC. Phillips, a graduate of Nome High School and the University of Alaska, was a two-term speaker of the state's House of Representatives in the 1990s, serving in the Legislature for a decade.

"When I was speaker of the House of Representatives, the revisions and updating of our well-established permitting process was a high priority," Phillips said. "We did not do this in a vacuum. All of the policy refinements were accomplished in an open public process. The best scientific advice was applied while conforming to state and federal guidelines and the adamant direction of the people of Alaska to do things right, and we are doing things right."

Alaska has the most environmentally safe resource development projects in the nation, Phillips told the RDC. The state's permitting system is commonly used as a model by other states and other countries, she added.

"If we allow one group of bullies to influence and buy off all those that must ensure our fair and equitable permitting process, how will this affect future development projects? The answer is negatively, and it will be a disaster," Phillips said.

"What truly bothers me is seeing an attempt by an organized group to prohibit the permitting process to go forward with the Pebble mine.

This attempt to limit the process is so unfair that it is un-Alaskan and un-American," she added.

Reimers: Economic problems have been ignored

The economic problems of the Bristol Bay area were largely ignored until Northern Dynasty came in and put local residents in the spotlight, Truth About Pebble board member Lisa Reimers told the RDC. Reimers is also a board member of Iliamna Natives Limited and general manager of Iliamna Development Corp. Iliamna is one of several villages close to the Pebble site. "All of a sudden we have all your attention, and before we were like, OK, we need help, where is everybody, you know, we need to figure out our economy, how are our people going to sustain ourselves," Reimers said.

Before the Pebble project there were few opportunities for young people to find jobs in the region's villages, Reimers said. Although Iliamna Development had no business experience, Northern Dynasty trusted it with contracts, she added. "We want everyone to know that it's been good for the economy out there," Reimers said. "We're worried about our environment; this is what we grew up with, this is what my mom grew up with, is the fish; but we also need to look at something to (diversify) our economy, because as leaders we're supposed to provide an economy, and we were struggling."

The leaders of Iliamna Natives want to allow Northern Dynasty to continue its studies, according to Reimers. "As long as they can do a good, safe mine, we have to look at it, and it's been great working with Northern Dynasty, and the opportunities out there have been very positive," she said. "The local people in the community have been taking pride in their work, we as a corporation have been growing, and it's been good. ... They can pay their fuel bills, they can pay for gas, which is $5 a gallon."

Other board members of Truth About Pebble include Anchorage businesswoman Sharon Anderson, longtime Iliamna Natives board member Myrtle Anelon, Kenai businessmen Fred Braun and Bob Favretto, Anchorage assemblyman Dan Sullivan and Anchorage geologist Chuck Hawley. Membership in the organization is free and it encourages anyone with an interest in the project to sign up.

Truth About Pebble received words of encouragement from Matthew Nikolai, president and CEO of Calista, a Native corporation for the Bethel area, where the Donlin Creek gold project is providing jobs for local people.

Two Pebble opponents from the Bristol Bay Alliance also spoke during the question-and-answer session at the RDC meeting, asking where they had made misrepresentations about the project and objecting to being characterized as bullies. "This is a free country; we can speak out on what we believe," said one of them, Mel Brown.