Why Miners Walked Away From the Planet's Richest Undeveloped Gold Deposit

To the energetic opponents of the mine, and they are not scarce, the greatest risk remains the one posed by the Pebble Mine to the salmon fisheries in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, as well as to the overwhelmingly Native American communities that harvest the fish. Close to one-half of the world’s sockeye salmon spawn in the watersheds downstream from the mine site. Could it be that Anglo American believes the Environmental Protection Agency will block the mine? (Under the Clean Water Act, the agency has the authority to veto the mine on environmental grounds.) Certainly the agency’s most recent watershed assessment (PDF) suggests it might. And what of the No Dirty Gold campaign, in which more than 50 gold buyers and retailers, including Zale (ZLC), Wal-Mart (WMT), QVC (LINTA), and Balfour (the graduation ring company), signed a pledge not to buy gold from the Pebble Mine? Is “dirty gold” becoming the new conflict diamond?
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