Alaska: Part 1 HARDtalk


Alaska: Part 1

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people. -- raids in 76 cities. Now on BBC News it is time for

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HARDtalk is on the road in the far west of Alaska, America's frontier

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state. The fishing community here, big business, and the US federal

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government, all of them are locked in a bitter argument over

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environmental sustainability and resource exploitation. The waters

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off this coast contain one of the world 's great wild salmon

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fisheries. 100 miles over there is a plan to build one of the world 's

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biggest copper mines. Can those two forms of resource exploitation

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coexist? The answer may do much to Flying inland from Alaska's

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south-west coast and you see a tapestry of streams, lakes, and

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rugged hills. Why old and empty. But for how much longer? The rocker arm

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that contains huge deposits of copper, along with gold and other

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precious metals. The mining industry senses an historic opportunity. 11

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billion times of copper ore could soon be shovelled out of these

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hills. The only way into the main right now is by helicopter. When you

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are in the air like this you get a sense of just how remote this place

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is. They want to dig the big pit down bad, they also need to build a

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power station, and develop a road or rail link to the sea so that they

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can get the copper out. It is a vast undertaking and it will cost many

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billions of dollars. John is a mining boss who thinks big. When he

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scans this landscape he imagines a vast open pit mine, thousands of

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jobs, tens of billions of dollars profit. It is a world-class copper

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prospect. There is a significant gold find on

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top of it. We are looking at a mine that could last up to 100 years.

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The mining company, a joint-venture between Britain's Anglo-American and

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Canada's Northern Dynasty minerals, has already done extensive test

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drilling, not just to chart the mineral deposits, but also to figure

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out how and where to dump billions of tonnes of waste or tailings.

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There is a lot of waste. The waste is essentially dirt. People think of

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waste and they think it is toxic or poison.

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It is toxic do. You cannot allow it to enter the ecosystem.

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It does have to have long-term monitoring, there is no question

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about that. Mining companies did not used to do that. We will not only

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have to monitor but we will have to put up a large cash bond in the

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hundreds of millions of dollars, so that even if we are not here there

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is the capacity to continue the monitoring.

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This is where the headwaters from the proposed mine site and up,

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Bristol Bay. Every summer vast numbers of salmon swim through these

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waters from the Pacific Ocean, heading to the lakes and streams

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where their lives began. It is one of the richest fisheries on the

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planet. There is no other fishery quite like this anywhere in the

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world. There are hundreds of fishing boats down below me, all of them

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with their nets out pulling in thousands of wild salmon. 30 million

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salmon converge on these waters are just three or four weeks every year.

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Local Inuit fishermen are joined by a fleet of boats from Oregon and

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Washington state. On a good day, they can haul in 2 million salmon

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between them. The fishermen now fear the delicate balance between man and

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fish is threatened by the planned for a huge mine in their backyard.

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Robin Samuelson, welcome to HARDtalk. What is it about the

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Liberal mine project that has got you and so many people in this

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community so worked up? It is those tailing ponds that they

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are planning on constructing, two miles x six miles x 300 feet high.

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If one of those breaks we are history. Bristol Bay will no longer

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be Bristol Bay. We have a culture that has been dependent on salmon

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since God created salmon and man and we are not willing to risk it.

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Would your grandchildren rather be out in the cold and in all weathers

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fishing or would they rather have a well-paid job on a mine that will

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probably last for the next 75 to 100 years. If my grandchildren were here

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they would say they would rather be fishing. Salmon is a billion-dollar

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business in Bristol Bay. The ocean beauty canning and processing plants

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can handle tens of thousands of fish every day. These may be wild salmon,

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but it is extraordinary how industrialise this production

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process has become. There are 350 workers in its plans. They are

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producing salmon for the freezer, canned salmon as well, when all of

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these fish leave this factory they will be worth an awful lot of money.

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Salmon is the mainstay of the local economy. In all, roughly 14,000

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livelihoods depend on the Bristol Bay fishery. Salmon is at the heart

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of the history and the culture of the small riverside town. How else

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do we tell salmon apart? One way to tell them is the eyeball. This Inuit

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community leader runs a summer camp teaching local children how to gut

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and smoky fish. Subsistence fishing has been the cornerstone of

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indigenous light here for millennia. The vast majority of tribal

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organisations in the Bristol Bay region have now joined the campaign

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against the project. Kim Williams, welcome to HARDtalk. Tell me how

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important the fish are to your community and your culture. For us

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it is part of who we are. It is our identity as Alaskan native

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people. If we did not have it, I cannot imagine not having it.

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you not see the big picture. The mine could bring to this region

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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 178 seconds

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at unprecedented economic growth. project? I ?I ? project? I of th

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leaders getting caught up with the propaganda. They are not finding out

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more on their own. They say the same about you. That you are not doing a

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project. We are doing the best we can with the facts based on science,

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not based on fear mongering. Because of the presence of the mine project

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there is a danger that communities around here are being torn apart.

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How worried are you about that? communities that are close, there

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was no connection before with us either culturally or traditionally.

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We do not even know them. You make it sound that when it comes to this

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project it is every man, woman, and tried for themselves. If you can get

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some are gathered that it is great, and if you cut you will probably

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oppose it. Is it the way it has become? The way I see it, because we

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are so open-minded to business why are we such bad people? Because we

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want to survive why is that bad? Alaska is wilder and more

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untarnished than any other corner of the US. The State prides itself on

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its natural wonders. Aren't tainted waters, a magical wild salmon

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migration and dramatic intervention from fearsome predators. It all

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makes for a seductive image of an ecosystem in harmony. The headwaters

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of the Bristol Bay, filled with salmon every year are a key part of

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Alaska's wilderness story and one which the state can ill afford to

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taint. The likely impact of the proposed mine, on these waters and

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the fish, is now under scientific scrutiny. Daniel Schindler, welcome

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to HARDtalk. You have spent the best part of 17 years working on Aquatic

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Centre degree search in this Bristol Bay drainage area. How unique is

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this ecosystem? It is unique in a variety of ways.

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One is the sheer vastness of it. The landscape is still undeveloped from

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the perspective of hydro dams and the lack of hatcheries to produce

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each -- to produce fish. Those type of disturbances do not exist here

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and Bristol Bay. In terms of salmon, it is one of the most productive

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landscapes in the world. We are looking at the potential

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impact of a vast industrial project and they do not have a concrete

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plan, but we have a pretty clear idea of what the scale of Coppermine

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they are talking about would involve. Watched you believe the

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main challenges are for them to overcome to get the commissions for

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this to go ahead? We know the ways that we produce

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will have to be contained, for centuries is not millennia. We know

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that water moves freely across this landscape. There is a lot of

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precipitation here, rain and snow. We navy surface is covered in gravel

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which is why it salmon have been so productive, because there is lots of

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habitat. Those issues may contain a huge challenge. The company insist

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that the way they are going to manage it is going to ensure that

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waste does not end up in a drainage system. In a place that has extreme

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changes in climate, history has told us that waste of this scale is very

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difficult. Pebble mine has become the most controversial kind --

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controversial of its kind in Alaskan history. There is a fundamental

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clash of interest here. You want to exploit it. You also know that we

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sit right now in the watershed area of one of the most important, indeed

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unique, wild fisheries in the whole of the world. I don't know how much

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of a threat we are considering the size of the ecosystem. We are very

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small piece of that ecosystem. It is a very important to Sharia. If we

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can prove that we can coexist. -- very important fishery. You are part

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of a very big international conglomerate. There are shareholders

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want you to deliver them vast profits. Tens of billions of dollars

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to your backers. That is what this is about. Let's not mince words.

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Yes, but it is also about enhancing the environment. In the past, you

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can have example of example of how a mining companies have done that. It

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is not in the best interests of companies to do that because it cost

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money in the long run. One of the leading experts on mining in the

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US, she says, it frankly there is no such thing as a no risk a minor. To

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you accept that? -- do you except that? -- yes. Then why would you

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contemplate taking such risks in such a unique environment? This

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environment exists over a huge area. This watershed runs into the Bristol

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Bay area, which is one of the world 's greatest salmon areas. Period.

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Even if it all escapes, which is not possible, it would not destroy the

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fishery. It just wouldn't. Why do you think the overwhelming majority

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of people in this region are opposed to your mine plan? They have ears.

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And those fears are legitimate about what the mind might do. We have a

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very high responsibility to show people that were not going to do

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what they're afraid of. We'll would be able to do that? I don't know. --

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will we be able to? Give me a ballpark figure of how much that

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would be worth to your company. total in place value that people

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have talked about is in the 300 range. -- 300 to 500 billion dollar

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range. So you're talking at about a half $1 trillion? In order to build

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a mine in a place like this, you need a big resource. That's what

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gives you the opportunity spends the money you need to spend to protect

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the environment. Thank you for being on HARDtalk. Anchorage, Alaska's

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business hub. This city and the entire state has been built on

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resource exploitation. The mineral potential is vast. The State's laws

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and politicians have long been hugely sympathetic to the extraction

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industries. The State may not get the final say. If the Federal

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government about to pull the plug on the proposed mine? Dennis McLaren,

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welcome to HARDtalk. Simple question, yes or no. Do you believe

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it is possible to develop a mine of the size that Pebble is talking

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about without having a damaging impact on the fishery? We know with

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a certainty that this will have an impact. You mean damaging ones?Yes,

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damaging ones. Then your answer is no. The mining component will say

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that they can do mitigating projects that will compensate for the damage

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that is created. You say up to 80 miles of streams lost. These are

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real changes to the ecosystem. Why not be upfront with me and say, it's

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time to get real. This mind cannot go ahead without fundamentally

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compromising one of America's most unique ecosystems. -- this mine.

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have used that authority very sparingly over the past years.

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concrete plan been submitted? has been used. Overall, we use that

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authority very cautiously and very sparingly. This is one of the last,

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best places. We want to take a very considered look at whether it is

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appropriate to use that authority. Whether it is appropriate to wait

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for a final mining plan. We need to look at the science, make sure we

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understand. Look at the modern mining practices. And then decide

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what our next steps are. We have not made a decision is yet. It is

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technically your decision. I wonder, it is so big and so

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important, it would go to Washington? I don't know. It would

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go to the highest levels of EPA. Bristol Bay this year 's salmon run

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