• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Old Foes Form Alliance Against Pebble Gold and Copper Deposit Development

Posted on: Friday, 7 April 2006, 00:00 CDT

By Paula Dobbyn, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Apr. 6--The village of Nondalton and Anchorage money manager Bob Gillam have long feuded over a proposed bridge in Southwest Alaska. But the prospect of a huge open-pit mine in the region has overshadowed their dispute, and the two sides recently formed an alliance to fight the project.

Gillam, who owns an expansive lodge on Lake Clark near Nondalton, helped organize and fund a group called the Renewable Resources Coalition. The group, which describes itself as mostly right-wing Republican and pro-development, is trying to defeat any effort to develop the Pebble prospect, saying a big mine straddling streams that feed Bristol Bay could threaten Alaska's most lucrative salmon fishery as well as sportfishing and subsistence.

Pebble is a massive gold and copper deposit that a Canadian company is hoping to develop, no earlier than 2011. The company is still exploring the deposit and hasn't yet decided to develop it.

Nondalton is 15 air miles from the deposit, and both its tribal and city government oppose developing Pebble. Last month, Nondalton cranked up the volume, with assistance from Gillam, president of McKinley Capital Management.

"We asked him for his help," Jack Hobson, president of the Nondalton tribal council, said Wednesday. "We don't have the money to fight these kinds of things."

The tribe rolled out full-page newspaper ads featuring five of its leaders denouncing Pebble. The ads, paid for by the Renewable Resources Coalition, thanked U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, for also voicing opposition to Pebble. The ads showed a woman holding a sign that read "Fish Are Our Gold Mine."

Gillam has also recently flown tribal leaders on his private jet to Juneau to testify on a Pebble-related measure and to Iliamna to speak before the Lake and Peninsula Borough about the same matter.

"He said he wanted to give back to the people of the region," Hobson said.

The rapprochement follows years of tension between Nondalton and Gillam over a proposed bridge across the Newhalen River.

The one-lane bridge would connect isolated Nondalton to a dirt road leading to Iliamna, a regional transportation and retail hub with a new medical center.

Several people from Nondalton have drowned in the last decade attempting to snowmachine across the river during winter. Some residents have said a bridge would save lives and lower the steep cost of fuel, foods and transportation.

Bulldozers punched in the Iliamna-Nondalton road decades ago, but funding for the bridge dried up in the 1980s, state transportation officials said. The former administration of Tony Knowles revived the project in the late 1990s. By 2001 it was ready to go to bid and be built, possibly a year later, said John Dickenson, a state transportation engineer.

Gillam has filed three lawsuits since 2002 to stop the proposed bridge. In two of his lawsuits, Gillam, with co-plaintiff Trout Unlimited, raised a host of objections, including poor planning by transportation officials that fails to address the cumulative effects of a bridge and a possible mine on the region.

Some say Gillam simply doesn't want more people coming into the Lake Clark region. His lodge sits on a peninsula jutting into the turquoise waters of Lake Clark, in a sleepy national park with few visitors.

"He thinks it's going to ruin his piece of paradise," said Bob Tracey, Nondalton mayor.

Gillam, through his attorney, has declined repeated requests for interviews. He recently resigned from the board of the Renewable Resources Coalition to lower his profile, said Richard Jameson, an Anchorage attorney who is the coalition's president.

With the prospect of North America's largest gold mine being built in their backyard, the road fight has petered out, Hobson said. The village is considering telling state officials it does not want the bridge because residents fear it could be used by mine trucks and other industrial traffic associated with Pebble or other future mining projects.

"Most people's attitudes have changed to where they don't want it," Hobson said.

Nondalton and Gillam have worked out their differences because both understand that too much is a stake with Pebble, said Rick Delkittie, tribal council member. In Gillam, they see a formidable ally.

"When you join the army, you go to win," Delkittie said.

While it's ironic that Nondalton and Gillam have joined forces, it's not surprising that a wealthy man like Gillam can forge alliances where he wants, said Steve Borell, head of the Alaska Miners Association.

"Big piles of money make for strange bedfellows," Borell said.

While people have a right to be concerned, they should reserve judgment until the mining company applies for permits to develop Pebble, he said.

Hobson and Delkittie see it differently. Gillam was born and raised in Alaska and values the resources of Southwest, they said.

"This magnitude of development is not going to work with our way of life. That's the way we live: We live by the gun. We use hooks and nets and all sorts of gear to harvest from the garden," Delkittie said.

-----

To see more of the Anchorage Daily News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.adn.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: Anchorage Daily News

More News in this Category