PA, you might find this interesting. Bonding for the full cost of reclamation is already an Alaska law. Pebble mine, being under federal regs, hasn’t even gotten to the issue of State bonding yet. Of course on a project so humongous, the size of the bond will be a point of contention itself.

http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/mining/aml/nlm...ctsinalaska.pdf

^^^^^^^
If I had my way we'd lock up Maine and give everyone the boot in an effort to keep it as pristine as possible, and make it an exclusive playground for all the yuppies in the rest of the northeast.

I hope you were being factitious.

Posco
Is that why you left Alaska. You wanted to lead the way in returning Alaska to pristine? LOL

How are they going to access Pebble Mine? A road, another road punched into the wilderness. You can only destroy it once and it's gone forever.

Probably just a gravel airstrip like the majority of the mines and oil fields in AK.

Guys, we appreciate the advice. Really, I don’t want to appear flippant or ungrateful. But I’d like to point out a couple things.

Alaska’s 4 largest industries are, (if you exclude government), Petroleum, seafood, tourism (including the sport fishing and hunting industries), and mining.

Alaska is the 4th largest oil producer of the United States, with oil generating about 38% of all wages and 85% of our state revenue.
Mining grosses $3 billion/year, making it 38% of our exports.

But despite all this Big Bad development, we also produce 60% of the domestic seafood in the USA, while having sustained and cleaned up the 2nd-largest marine oil spill in US history. We are a world-class hunting and fishing destination, partly due to our management and licensing systems.. Our wildlife populations are thriving, almost universally. Our state contains more wilderness area than the rest of the country combined, and 1/3 of the total national coastline.

All of these industries (oil, mining, fishing, trapping) have been going strong for over 100 years, and ALL continue to prosper.

I’ve built oil pipelines, tank farms and drill rigs. I’ve cleaned up crude. I’ve also commercial fished next to the legs of the oil platforms, and hunted from many an oilfield road. I’ve seen more wild bears and fox near oilfield camps than any other location. We use minimal impact methods, and when we make a mess, we clean it up. We have rigorous and enforced regulations, and because of our love of our land, we hold each other accountable. I’ve already talked to PA about our bonding requirements.

Some of the best trapping and hunting habitat around is within throwing distance of an oilfield pad or mine. If you think those two things are mutually exclusive, maybe you’ve never experienced either.

I guess all this is to say, thanks for sharing your concerns based on YOUR states’ failures, but we’re pretty good at what we do, and what we do is endeavor to manage ALL our natural resources responsibly and compatibly. And we’ve done it successfully for quite awhile. Yep we make mistakes, and then we correct them and learn from them. In fact, the only time we really get jammed up seems to be when some all-knowing eastern Feds or enviros show up .
Maybe part of the reason for our success is that we’re a young state and we were able to learn from others’ mistakes. Maybe it’s because of you guys’ states screwing up your water that we learned what not to do! . So in that case, thanks for all your help!

Couple of things to watch out for with the Pebble Mine, which we had happen here in PA when the shale gas boomed ten years ago. First, the companies will 'buy' certain elected officials. They will give them so much re-election money that it is almost impossible to beat them (when it becomes evident they are more interested in serving the companies than they are in serving The People). Second, those bought-and-paid-for officials will do everything possible to lighten the most basic regulatory requirements, and they will politically interfere with professional and scientific oversight of the mine\ drilling operation. Case in point: Our Susquehanna River was a world-class fishery. Unbelievable fishing here, drawing people from all over the USA, until the shale gas boom started. Then the river quality plummeted, hardly any fish remained, and even the bird life disappeared. We had a huge heron and egret rookery out on the islands. That is gone. Barely any ducks or Canada geese come through any more. We are talking about a river that is a mile wide or more, with a lot of water, a lot of potential habitat. Even turtles are way down. Used to be a pile of mink for guys to trap. Not as many now. Just weird stuff happened. Something was wrong. The water quality was awful. And then once the drilling dropped off, the river began to really rebound. Now after about four years of quiet, people are catching fish again. Not like ten years ago, but there is a sign of life now. People surmise that there was a lot of "midnight dumping" by brine trucks, carrying really toxic wastewater from the drilling pads and illegally dumping the sludge into waterways. Anyhow, there is a lot that goes into these resource extraction processes, whether gold or gas. Making sure the state has the right oversight process in place to protect the resource while allowing it to be productive here and now, and to resist political interference, is the most important thing. I only visited Alaska once, for a week back in 2005, and we used a plane to get around central AK every day, fish different country. It was phenomenally rich wildlife habitat everywhere we went, but even then the guide would point out a problem area here, an incursion with invasive plants over there. The people of AK have something really special, and when I read comments here that seem acid or deliberately off-the-cuff in favor of full-blown development, it makes me think maybe these people don't want to live in AK, but would rather live in New Jersey. Because that is what they are inviting in. Maybe just moving from AK to New Jersey would solve their material desires, which are stronger than their desire for phenomenal trapping habitat?

Any idea what happened to the Bass in the Juniata?

As for the mink, i trap both rivers, the Juniata for decades and the mink population is the highest i ever saw it. I didn't trap the Susquahanna back then, but have in the last ten years and have found a good population of mink, but can't compare to earlier.