Save Our Snow! (and Our Salmon)
Alaskans who have something to say about the Chuitna coal project in Cook Inlet have gone to Utah. Why? That’s where skiiers, snowboarders, and outdoor snow enthusiasts are helping to voice concern about what burning coal is doing to abundant snowfall. They have noted and are pointing out the bizarre conflict of interest in a ski resort owner, Dick Bass, who depends on cold winters and abundant snow but is helping to fund a large coal strip mining project that will pour 54 billion pounds of carbon a year into the atmosphere.
But don’t worry Alaskans, all that coal will come back to us. We’re selling most of it to China where they’ll burn it, and the atmospheric currents will carry it back home again in the form of those hazy summer days we see with more frequency, and acid rain, not to mention melting permafrost, and glaciers, and coastal erosion and loss of sea ice and polar bear habitat. And of course, there’s that part about the mine itself causeing the loss of valuable salmon spawning streams and the destruction of wetlands with tons of nasty waste.
Wouldn’t it be nice to pour all that money and all those resources into developing CLEAN energy for Alaska, that would support CLEAN jobs for Alaskans? But instead, we’re yet again risking our most valuable and truly renewable resource (salmon) for the short term gain of a strip mine.
So, concerned Alaskans decided to make the treck to the 2010 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market held this week in Salt Lake City.
The NO COALition, supported by Protect Our Winters, the Chuitna Citizens Coalition, Sierra Club, Cook InletKeeper and Earthworks, will be staffing a large booth during the outdoor industry trade show with displays and information, gathering photo petitions, video testimony and distributing a sign-on letter from exhibitors asking Bass to divest of the mine.
PacRim Coal, owned by a partnership between Bass and William H. Hunt of the Hunt Group, is proposing a coal strip mine on the Chuitna River system that detractors claim will destroy one of Alaska’s premier native salmon fisheries that feeds into the Cook Inlet. The mine is expected to produce 12 million tons of ultra-low sulfur, sub-bituminous coal annually, which despite its low sulfur content protesters equate to 54 billion pounds of carbon emissions per year. The mine lease area covers 30 square miles and the NO COALition claims that it will destroy 11 miles of critical salmon spawing streams. The groups argue that global warming gases created through coal combustion threaten snow and outdoor winter recreation, and therefore believe that it’s hypocritical for a ski resort owner to propose an industrial project that is in direct conflict with the long term health of the U.S. ski industry.
PacRim has a state lease on more than 20,000 acres of land estimated to contain one billion tons of coal. The company hopes to mine the deposit over the course of several decades, beginning with a 5,000-acre tract that alone is believed could produce 12 million metric tons of coal a year for 25 years, enough coal annually to fill more than 116,500 railroad cars.
Nearly all the coal excavated from the mine would be exported to coal markets in China and other Pacific Rim countries from the terminal at Ladd Landing, between the native village of Tyonek and the primarily non-native village of Beluga, neither of which are accessible by road. In addition to the mine and terminal, plans call for building a road, a conveyor system to transport coal, housing, an air strip facility and a logistics center.
Local lawmakers support the project for its tax and employment benefits. Since exercising its lease at Ladd Landing early last year, PacRim Coal LLP has been working to finalize its agreement with Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Borough.
Alaskans who care about the devastating effects of the proposed Chuitna coal mine in Beluga, 45 miles Southwest of Anchorage, are in Utah to raise public awareness among snowboarders, skiers and outdoor enthusiasts who care about what burning coal is doing to abundant snow fall. While we Alaskans are even more concerned about losing valuable salmon spawning streams, tons of waste and wetlands destruction, we are all in agreement that this is a bad place for a coal strip mine.
Is this the Bass family from Texas? Big oil.
I don’t know how many mudpuppies have ever seen a strip mine. They’re horrible, and horribly devastating to the environment. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Alaska needs economic development that depends on something other than extractive industries (timber, trawlers, sport hunting, fossil fuel mining and drilling, gold mining, etc. etc.), or it will become such a wasteland that the tourist money (which is spent to see wilderness and glaciers, not the same Starbucks landscape that can be seen back home) will dry up! NO to coal mining!! If there’s a petition, I’ll gladly sign it. Health and peace.
i wish them good luck
Would love to know which ski resort Mr Bass is a part owner in. That needs to come out so that people can voice an opinion there too.
Strip coal mining is blamed for most of the habitiat destruction in WV, KY, TN and other states.
We need to clean up our state and local zoning and permit regulations so these industries can function unless they do it in a manner that doesn’t destroy all things around them.
Perfect target – hit them in their wallets in their own backyard.
“PacRim has a state lease on more than 20,000 acres of land”
Say, how much is a tract of land like that and can I get a deal too? Whom shall I speak to regarding MY wonderful pollutin’ project?
Honestly, I’ll put $500. in each Alaskan adult’s pocket too, to sweeten the deal, not to mention how much I’ll donate to any Governor’s campaign. *coff*coff*…whaddayasay?
Alberta Oil Sands – National Geographic A photo essay.
No worries, leeching into the Athabasca River, no fish for human consumption….no problem. Here’s the Full article.
We’ve been here before, Mountaintop removal – coal strip mining in Virginia.
Watch the backlash and excuses begin.
Coal companies and many of their employees regard anyone who objects to the practice as a troublemaker and a threat to their livelihood.
Someone explain to me what’s the use of a research vessel [built by Marinette Marine Corporation in Marinette, Wis.], owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by UAF as part of the U.S. academic research fleet – when they fire ex UA Professor Rick Steiner? What purpose this research and knowledge if you aren’t going to use it for its purpose? So your politician can sell the citizens down the river and buy a big mansion somewhere warm?
“His removal from the NOAA Sea Grant program was a direct retaliation for his criticism of NOAA and the University of Alaska (UA) for allowing Shell Oil to be a sponsor of a university conference focusing on offshore development.” – Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Yes, Dick Bass is from Texas big oil family, and his partner is Herbert Hunt, one of the Texas Hunt brothers, whose family tried to corner the silver market years ago.
And aside from the major climate change implications of this massive strip mine, it will also be the first major mine project in Alaska history to mine directly through 11 miles of salmon stream. bad precedent, for Pebble and every other place where nonrenewable mining and renewable salmon come into conflict.
and btw, Dick Bass is CEO of Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah, and an active climate change denier. ironic, no?
More power to these folks.
Sadly not after the supremes have done their number, big coal can buy their legislators even more easily and directly than before.
Gawd. Lettin’ the RepoCons and Bushies get in your life is it like havin’ a mad skunk loose one into your airconditioner intake.
The stink just goes on forever.
For Alaska “Save our Snow” sounds like a winner in the slogan contest.
I have followed Dick Bass’s climbing career; he was the first to attempt and succeed on the 7 summits agenda. His books make no small bones about the fact that he is a successful businessman, an unapologetic capitalist. I guess he had to make plenty of bucks to climb all the highest peaks and he climbed more for ego than for personal satisfaction.
He achieved his highest peak goals mostly from the work of Sherpas (in the Himalayas) and other talented climbers assisting him on other climbs.
He’s an ego, in business and in mountaineering. That’s about it. He’s in EVERYTHING for himself and nothing more. Everything he accomplishes is a scalp on his belt. He cares for nothing except himself.
I’ll check out Dick Bass another time. Strip mining for coal. I’ve seen pictures and I wonder what they put in those big holes in the ground to replace what the strippers take out. It’s very disgusting isn’t it. Earth belongs to all of the people on it, yet societies allow a handful to destroy it. My society is watching the Bering Sea Trawl Fishery destroy the salmon that has fed the People for hundreds of years. Our Native people population is the poorest in the state yet Corporations are raking out millions and millions of dollars from the resources that should be sustaining the people. Native Alaskans are citizens also yet their voices don’t count because we are poor. We are poor and our crooked leaders are going along with the rich. Sad isn’t it. Manipulating the ignorant and the illiterate. Carpetbaggers all over the place.
“My overarching dream for Snowbird is the creation of an environmentally sensitive, responsible year-round mountain resort which is inspired by the beauty and magnificence of this breathtaking alpine setting—a place dedicated to increasing worldwide human understanding by enhancing peoples’ growth in body, mind and spirit.”
- Snowbird Chairman Dick Bass
Save our Salmon. Never mind the snow. We can’t eat snow but we eat salmon. Save our Salmon because it’s been food for the poor for hundreds of years