The Truth Report

Spokane Todd says...

Spokane Todd purports to represent "we Alaskans." One may wonder why a paid actor from Spokane talking to "we Alaskans" about the proposed Pebble Project? Do you think he always (or even oftern) tells the Truth? See for your self. Read the myths and Truth About Pebble below.

Spokane Todd: Truth About Pebble:

“Northern Dynasty has already filed…mine plans and permit applications for the Pebble Mine."

Northern Dynasty has submitted preliminary applications for the future right to use water in the area surrounding the Pebble deposit. These applications do not describe the project that Northern Dynasty is proposing to build, and will not be considered by state agencies until the company finishes its proposed development plan and applies for the more than 60 permits necessary to build and operate the mine. This is not expected to occur until 2008 or 2009 at the earliest, at which point a multi-year permitting process will begin.
Spokane Todd is suggesting that approval of the Pebble mine is imminent. The truth is that permits won’t be granted until 2012 at the very earliest, and likely much later.

The Pebble Project will lead to “destruction and draining of salmon habitat at the headwaters of the Koktuli River and Upper Talarik Creek.”

These effects will be mitigated and/or compensated by enhancing the natural productivity of these or nearby streams to ensure that there is no-net project related loss to any Bristol Bay fishery.
The company behind the Pebble Project must prove that its project will not diminish any Bristol Bay fishery. If it can’t do this, the Pebble Project won’t be permitted.
The Koktuli River and Upper Talarik Creek are modest tributaries to two of the eight river systems that together support Bristol Bay fisheries.
Together they produce less than one-half of 1% of total Bristol Bay sockeye escapement.
The Pebble Project will directly affect a very small proportion of these two tributaries.

The Pebble Project will “detonat(e)…up to 58,000 one-ton blasts a year.”

Northern Dynasty has corrected the record on this point many times, but Spokane Todd and his patrons at the Renewable Resources Coalition continue to perpetuate the 58,000 blasts per day myth. In fact, there will be one or two blasts a day, and none of them will be heard by nearby communities.
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The Pebble Project will “driv(e) residents of a nearby village from their homes.”'

Absolute nonsense. The communities in closest proximity to the Pebble deposit are nearly 20 miles away. Activities at the Pebble mine site will not be noticeable in any of these communities.

The Pebble Project will result in the “destruction of one of the traditional calving grounds of the Mulchatna caribou herd.”

Parts of the Mulchatna caribou herd have occasionally calved in the vicinity of the Pebble Project, but there’s no such thing as a ‘traditional’ calving area. Calving locations shift from year to year, and from decade to decade, over thousands of square miles.
The area around the Pebble Project is generally used by caribou for migration in some years. Development of the project is not expected to affect overall caribou migration or caribou numbers.

“Pebble executives cannot be held liable for potential environmental damage, since they are not part of a US company.”

Pebble Project executives are not immune from prosecution under US laws.
Since 1989, Alaska court judgments are enforceable against British Columbia residents under a shared court order enforcement act.

The Pebble Project will “strip metals from ore with cyanide or other toxic agents that could wipe out Bristol Bay salmon with a single accident.”

Northern Dynasty has not yet confirmed what re-agents may be used in the milling process at the proposed Pebble mine. Many of the re-agents used in ‘froth flotation’ – the most common milling process for mineral deposits like Pebble – are organic and pose no threat to the environment.
Regardless of the re-agents to be used in the milling process, tailings pond water at Pebble is expected to be relatively clean. Many similar mines have tailings ponds that support healthy fish populations, and are safe for human and wildlife consumption. This is the goal for Pebble.
As to Spokane Todd’s suggestion that an accident at Pebble could wipe out all Bristol Bay salmon stocks, this claim is preposterous. The reality is that 80% of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon production occurs in river systems that are not connected in any way to the area that hosts the Pebble deposit. It is a physical impossibility that these fish could be affected.
Based on modern engineering standards, the risk that the tailings facility at Pebble will suffer a catastrophic failure is infinitesimally small. In fact, it will be engineered to withstand seismic events of such magnitude that they could never actually occur in the project area.
And even if some unimaginable event did occur to damage the Pebble tailings facility – such as a direct meteor strike or alien invasion – downstream waterways would not necessarily be affected. That’s because the tailings facility will primarily store solid material (ground-up rock), with a relatively shallow pool of water (50 – 75-feet) set half a mile or more back from the edge of the embankment.
And even if the meteor or alien invasion caused tailings water to spill out of the embankment, carrying some portion of the solids material with it, negative effects on fish would be limited to the upper reaches of the Koktuli River and Upper Talarik Creek.
These modest tributaries to two of the eight river systems that together support Bristol Bay fisheries produce less than one-half of 1% of Bristol Bay sockeye escapement.
And even if the salmon supported by these two modest tributaries were entirely wiped out – again, an infinitesimally small likelihood – they would re-establish themselves over time.
This has been the experience in other areas where natural events have totally choked and wiped out salmon systems (e.g the explosions of Mt. St. Helens in Oregon and Mt. Chiginagak in Alaska).
So Spokane Todd is really talking about the infinitesimally small likelihood that less than one-half of 1% of Bristol Bay sockeye may be temporarily affected by a tremendously unlikely cataclysmic event.

The Pebble Project will “generat(e) dissolved copper, tiny amounts of which can destroy the homing mechanism of salmon.”

Spokane Todd may be referring to some relatively recent laboratory experiments that suggest dissolved copper may inhibit the homing mechanisms of coho salmon. However, the results of this experiment have been difficult to reproduce in other studies and are far from conclusive.
It’s also true that copper is a micro-nutrient that exists in natural systems and is essential at low levels for proper fish development. In fact, some salmon rivers have natural copper levels that are higher than those in the above noted experiments, and they support entirely healthy salmon populations with no impairment of their homing mechanisms. These include several tributaries of the Copper River in Alaska.
If water is to be discharged to the environment at the proposed Pebble mine, it will have to meet very conservative aquatic life standards enforced by the state and federal governments. This includes standards for copper and many other elements.

The Pebble Project will include “some of the largest earthen dams in the world to hold toxic mining waste in a seismically active area at the headwaters of Bristol Bay salmon spawning rivers.”

There are more than 20 dams or embankments in operation or under construction around the world that are larger than those proposed for Pebble. Many of them are earth- or rock-fill dams of the type proposed for Pebble, which are among the most stable engineered structures known to man.
Most of the material to be retained by these embankments will be solids (ground-up rock). The tailings facility will also include a relatively shallow (50 – 75 feet deep) pool of water set back half a mile or more from the edge of the embankment.
Tailings pond water at Pebble is expected to be relatively clean. Many similar mines have tailings ponds that support healthy fish populations, and are safe for human and wildlife consumption. This is the goal for Pebble.
The area that hosts the Pebble deposit is much less seismically active than other parts of the state. The area surrounding Anchorage, for instance, is much more likely to experience a high magnitude earthquake in close proximity to developed areas. Still, the tailings facility at the proposed Pebble mine will be designed to withstand seismic events of such magnitude that they could never actually occur in the project area.
Finally, the Pebble Project is located near the headwaters of two minor tributaries to two of the eight river systems that together support Bristol Bay fisheries. Together they represent less than one-half of 1% of total Bristol Bay sockeye escapement.
The Pebble Project will directly affect a very small proportion of these two tributaries. These effects will be mitigated and/or compensated by enhancing the natural productivity of these or nearby streams to ensure that there is no-net project related loss to any Bristol Bay fishery.

The Pebble Project will “require taxpayers to pay for monitoring, and potentially the expensive clean-up of some of the world’s largest toxic storage sites.”

This is not correct. The Pebble Project pays for all state regulatory and oversight costs today, and will pay for all monitoring costs in the future. The Project will also generate tens of millions of dollars in state tax revenues annually when operating – far in excess of what will be required to regulate it.
There is no possibility that state taxpayers will have to pay for reclamation of the Pebble Project site. As part of state permitting requirements, a mine operator must post a financial surety of sufficient size to pay for the responsible closure and reclamation of a project at every stage of its development. This surety bond and the project itself are audited every five years and the bond updated accordingly.

The Pebble Project will “threaten 6,300 existing Alaska salmon-related jobs for 1,000 temporary jobs that will mostly go to non-Alaskans.”

Spokane Todd’s claim that the Pebble Project could threaten every single job supported by Bristol Bay fisheries is absurd. So are his claims about fishing jobs and mining jobs.
The reality is that 80% of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon production occurs in river systems that aren’t connected in any way to the area that hosts the Pebble deposit. It is a physical impossibility that these fish could be affected.
It’s also a physical impossibility that Pebble could affect all salmon in the two Bristol Bay river drainages that are connected to the Pebble site. Although the likelihood of a catastrophic failure of the Pebble tailings facility is infinitesimally small, it would affect less than one-half of 1% of Bristol Bay sockeye escapement – and those effects would be temporary.
Spokane Todd is also wrong when he suggests that Bristol Bay fisheries support 6,300 jobs. This number is derived from a report commissioned by Trout Unlimited and co-authored by the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) – a report that’s been proven to be seriously flawed and is currently being revised.
ISER has explicitly asked the Renewable Resources Coalition (Spokane Todd’s patron) to stop quoting the 6,300-job figure because it is incorrect. ISER has also instructed Trout Unlimited that it no longer wishes its name to appear on the cover of the report. Despite these requests, Spokane Todd continues to quote the misleading 6,300-job figure and other questionable statistics.
But Spokane Todd is also wrong when he suggests that fishing jobs are held by Alaskans while mining jobs aren’t. The fishing industry has one of the worst resident employment rates in Alaska at just 28%. By contrast, mining has one of the highest resident employment rates in Alaska at 83%.
Mining jobs also tend to pay higher wages, to be full-time rather than seasonal, and to support significantly more spin-off economic activity than fishing jobs.
Finally, Spokane Todd dismisses 1,000 high-wage and high-skill jobs for 50 – 80 years as temporary. Three or four generations of Alaskans seeking economic opportunity might see it differently.

The Pebble Project will “(t)hreaten the efforts by fishermen to increase the value of Bristol Bay salmon by creating a ‘Pure Wild Alaska Salmon’ image.”

It’s not clear why Spokane Todd believes the Pebble Project will destroy the image of Alaska salmon as clean and pure.
This image has not been affected by the Red Dog mine, the Pogo mine, the Greens Creek mine, the True North mine, the Usibelli mine, the Fort Knox mine or dozens of other smaller mining operations in the state. Nor has it been affected by the state’s oil & gas industry or even the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.
Ironically, one of the Alaska salmon stocks with the greatest market reputation for quality and purity is Copper River Reds. The Kennicott River is a tributary to the Copper River, and has at its headwaters one of the state’s most famous historic copper mines – Kennecott.

Northern Dynasty is “a company whose own documents state they cannot be held to account when a catastrophe occurs.”

Spokane Todd is referring to language that the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) requires companies like Northern Dynasty to reproduce in their financial reporting.
The truth is that Northern Dynasty, its executives and directors are fully accountable under Alaska and U.S. law for all of their actions in the state.
Spokane Todd’s patrons at the Renewable Resources Coalition have been informed of this fact on numerous occasions and continue to make the same erroneous claim.