The project plans boast a 2,000-foot-deep open-pit mine stretching more than two-miles long with earthen dams up to 50 stories high, which are to be built in a known earthquake zone, and are supposed to hold back some 10-billion tons of mining waste mixed with cyanide, sulfuric acid, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals.
Not only is it unsafe, it is destructive and degrading. As one of the last remaining pieces of American wilderness, Bristol Bay is home to an "unspoiled Eden of vast tundra, crystal clear streams, and pristine lakes that span a stunning array of national parks and wildlife refuges," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. To add to its endearing image, Native Alaskans still live their traditional ways here, filling their freezers and smokehouses with fish from the bay for the coming year. A Brown University study found that 20 percent of the average indigenous families' diet consists of sockeye salmon.
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