Alaska: Pebble Mine, Alaska’s Next Gold Rush?

by | Fresh Water

Bristol Bay AlaskaRead Research Paper

Bristol Bay, Alaska from what I have always heard is one of, if not the most worlds most amazing places for a fly fisherman to fish and visit. I had always been completely fascinated about tales of wild beautiful rainbow trout, grayling, and multitudes of salmon inhabiting the region from sources both online and offline. As of recently, I had heard talk and rumors about a large scale open pit gold mine proposed to be placed directly on top of the world famous river drainages in the bristol bay region. I did some research and decided that this was an definately an important issue that needed to be addressed by fisherman from around the world. I am concluding my junior year in high school here in Maine. As part of our curiculum every junior in my high school is required to write a research paper, and for my topic of research I chose the proposed open pit gold mine known as the “Pebble Mine” that is under the operation of the Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty. So, instead of writing my research paper on some of the other more common topics such as bio fuel, global warming and recently introduced sports regulations; I decided to write my research paper on the Pebble Mine. This topic may not be very important to the majority of my classmates, but I could think of no better topic to write my research paper on than something that will have an effect, one way or the other, on the world famous and precious Bristol Bay region of Alaska

8 Comments

  1. genevajim on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Austin,

    Interesting topic and great paper. One thing, check your $$$ numbers. Gold is trading between $900-1000/oz making an even more compelling economic case for Northern Dynasty.

    Jim

  2. joey on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Nice work A-town. Crazy stuff going on up there. Hopefully the decision they make is the proper one.Have you seen the Red Gold trailer? I was fishing with one of the producers of that film and he was telling me about what is going on up there. Pretty scary. If you haven’t seen it check it out, you’ll like it. Good luck with the paper, hopefully your teacher is a fly fisherman and gives you an ‘A’

  3. rhodyflyguy on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Pebble mine sucks! We’ve already screwed up enough of the world, I hope that this thing gets stopped. 40-50 years of work is not worth the destruction of a sustainable fishery. Great paper Austion.

  4. Pete on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Hey Austin, have you checked out the stop pebble mine site? just type it in as one word with a .com at the end. They have links to articles and studies detailing the negative environmental impact of mining.

    Also, have you checked in on Felt Soul Media? They’ve got a movie about it coming out. There’s a trailer on their website that was part of the fly fishing film tour.

    Nice work.

  5. Boz on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Austin,

    Glad to see you taking interest in some of our nation’s last Great Wilderness. This area is more valuable left alone.

    Good stuff

  6. jeremy on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Austin,

    Well done. It is impressive and makes me glad to see that you have already taken all of your many fly fishing experiences and channeled the energy from those amazing experiences into things that are not self serving and issues that are inherently bigger, selfless and aimed at conserving precious natural resources that most “kids” your age are not even aware of, yet.

  7. Austin on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Thanks for the compliments everyone! I really appreciate you taking the time to read my paper. It would be devestating to see this mine actually go through!

  8. KodiakCommando on November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Well done austin!

    It’s really important that all outdoor enthusiasts even the ones that have never been to bristol bay speak up.