Tuesday, January 22, 2019 12:59:06 AM
Part 2
Alaska Peninsula Corporation Signed a Land Access Agreement with Pebble Partnership.
{Greg Anelon} also lives in Newhalen, a dot of a village in Southwestern Alaska, next to Iliamna, its sister village. Both villages are about 15 miles from where the Pebble mine will be located.
Greg Anelon wants to raise his children in the area, but doesn't see a future for his village without the mine and the development that will result from it; namely, inexpensive electricity from the Pebble power plant, which will also help the other villages in the area. The low cost fuel that the mine will be bringing to the area, and the roads that Northern Dynasty will build, will also benefit the area.
Before Pebble arrived, the villages of Iliamna and Newhalen were in severe decline: no jobs, no money, escalating food and fuel costs. Few could afford the fuel and equipment needed to commercially fish the prized sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay.
Anelon agrees fish are more important than gold, but first it has to be shown that the Pebble mine will be a danger to the salmon. Plus the salmon are becoming less financially relevant to the people in the area. That is because, even for the residents that aren't directly involved in salmon fishing, they still can't benefit during the fishing season, by getting jobs processing the fish, because more than 86% of seafood processing jobs in Bristol Bay go to non-Alaskan residents. He notes that few residents in his area can make ends meet solely through commercial fishing.
" I see enough infrastructure in the area to keep our village alive. Another village in the area, Pedro Bay, lost its school last fall because of too few children attending. "I'll do anything to make sure the kids live in the village and stay in school."
Another Native Alaska group, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation stated: "The nation's environmental laws are premised on the belief that science, rather than the kind of general information and speculation contained in the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment (BBWA), should govern decisions."
More Native Alaskan's are for the mine than people realize
Some of the FAKE FACTS anti-Pebble groups are using
FOREMOST
HOW IMPORTANT ARE THE SALMON
TO NATIVE ALASKAN'S?
2018 was the highest sockeye salmon run in Bristol Bay since 1980. {Half} of the Bristol Bay residents are Native Alaskan's, but few were able to take part in the orgy of salmon fishing that was taking place.
In order to prevent over fishing of the salmon, in 1973, Alaska created a limited entry system that capped the number of permits of salmon fishing boats. The permit holders can hold on to the permits, or sell them.
Major foreign fishing conglomerates ended up with {64%} of the permits. Native Alaskan families, and Alaskan residents, held the other 36% of the permits, and this was enough permits to service the Alaskan residents and Native Alaskans that wanted to be involved in salmon fishing. However, the number of Native Alaskan families involved in salmon fishing has been steadily dropping, and by 2013 81% of the permits belonged to non-Alaskan holders. That trend is still continuing.
Once a family sells a permit, it is basically gone, because they are so expensive to buy back. It can {cost} up to $200,000 to buy a permit.
Alaskan youth are no longer committing to a salmon {fishing career} and so their family permits may end up being sold.
It used to be that an Alaskan Native, or resident, would get into their trawler and go salmon fishing when the salmon were running. They would spend all day fishing, before heading in to shore. They did not pack the salmon in ice because their trawlers did not have the capability to produce ice, and they did not buy the ice on shore, because the high cost of electricity made ice too expensive to buy, especially with the large amount of ice needed. And most did not have a refrigerated hold in which to put the salmon.
Very few people can afford to buy one of the new fishing vessels that are equipped with a refrigeration unit, because they cost $400,000.
Upgrading their present trawler with a refrigerated sea water system would cost $30,000 for the system itself. In addition to that, the trawler would require expensive hydraulic modifications, fish hold modifications, and other renovations. Again, too expensive for most people.
A salmon pulled out of water and left in the hold at 59 degrees F for 4 hours, will lose a day of shelf life (equivalent to how long they would be on a grocers shelf). It would lose even more shelf life if the temperature was above that. Because the ships are out in the large bay all day, the salmon could be in the hold for multiples of the four hours, which would mean that they could have lost many days of shelf life before the ship made it back to shore.
Even so, all the salmon would look fresh. Because of that, it used to be that Native Alaskan fishermen/fisherwomen, would get a decent price for their salmon. But now, a hand held device from from {Seafood Analytics,} can indicate how far the salmon have deteriorated. For years, buyers have been paying Native Alaskan fishermen less and less for their catch, because they were not putting the salmon on ice. Starting this year the buyers are {refusing} to buy salmon that have not been put on ice after being caught. Very few Native Alaskan's will be able to meet these requirements.
Most of the salmon {harvesting} takes place between June and and August.
During the rest of the year, Native Alaskan's, even the ones that still own fishing boats, need to find work, and there are few jobs available.
Activist's keep saying that Native Alaskan's have been fishing for salmon for thousands of years. That the salmon need to be protected in order that Native Alaskan's can retain their way of life, and financial livelihood that they earn by fishing the salmon.
That has been taken over by out of state commercial fishing fleets.
< Salmon fishing is no longer a way of life >
<<< for Native Alaskan's >>>
Critics say Pebble mine will only last 20 years,
The Pebble deposit has only been partially explored, but it is already
expected to last for {100 years.}
Pebble is a giant ore deposit. World wide, other mines of comparable size, stay in production for well over a hundred years, such as
Chuquicamata, which has been in production since 1910.
What are the arguments that critics are using against the Pebble mine
Opponents say the ore grade is so low that it would not be economically feasible to build a mine.
Pebble contains a concentration of 0.61% equivalent copper (Eq Cu). Seabridge has the KSM mine whose copper concentration of 0.61% Eq Cu, is similar to Pebble, and Seabridge's mine is very profitable. There are even profitable mines with grades as {0.15%.}
Most major mines have cash costs of more than $1 per pound of copper. They are still very profitable mines, because the price of copper is over $2.50/pound. The Pebble mine would have cash costs of {$0.53} per pound of copper. A world class low copper cost mine.
Pebble would be one of the most profitable copper mines in the world
.................................................................................
People have also been led to believe that Pebble is next to Bristol Bay, but it is {100 air miles} and 230 river miles from Bristol Bay. They have been led to believe that any tailing's spillage will empty directly into the rivers and streams flowing into Bristol Bay. Supposing that there was spillage; unlike what the environmentalists state, the Pebble mine will only be near tributaries that account for less than {1%} of the Bristol Bay Drainage system.
The EPA, in its opposition to the Pebble mine, said that Pebble would devastate the area because it was near the headwaters of the ecologically sensitive Kvichak and Nuahagak watersheds.
But the Upper Talarik Creek is not the headwaters of the Kvichak River, and the Koktuli River is not the headwaters of the Nushagak River.
Opponents say
The Pebble area is earthquake prone
It is impossible for Pebble to be designed to withstand the strong earthquakes that occur in Alaska
This is the same argument that was made about the Trans Alaska Pipeline. What insights can be gained from that debate?
The Sierra Club asserted that the pipeline had basic design flaws which could not be overcome, even by engineering ingenuity, because the pipeline would cross the Denali fault, one of the most active and most powerful earthquake zones in the world.
A report from {top ecologists} at the Department of the Interior claimed that any one of 23 major earthquakes of the last 70 years would have caused a catastrophic break in the proposed pipeline.
According to the standards for building pipelines at that time, their conjecture was true. But they, and the Sierra Club, were wrong in thinking that ingenuity could not overcome the problems poised by earthquakes.
The oil companies were able {design} a pipeline capable of withstanding an 8.5 magnitude earthquake. The pipeline specification was for it to be 48 inches in diameter. Normally, that large a pipeline is easily ruptured, but they found a company in Japan that was making 48 inch pipelines with elastic properties so that it could bend under pressure, such as would occur during an earthquake, and return to its original form when the pressure subsided.
To test it under even more extreme circumstances, a section of the proposed pipeline was attached to huge frames, and massive loads were applied so that the pipeline wrinkled, and buckled, and finally folded in on itself, but it still did not rupture, and was even able to hold its pressure.
Over active fault areas, the pipeline was attached to sliders with Teflon shoes that were free to slide on long horizontal steel beams so that the pipeline could move 20 feet sideways if the ground moved sideways during an earthequake.
The pipeline was built with a series of curves so that it could stretch like an accordion if the ground move lengthwise.
The pipeline was flexible enough, and was attached to the beams in such a way, that it could move vertically, up or down, a distance of 5 feet.
Years later, after the pipeline was built, this was put to the test. On November 3, 2002, a 7.9 earthquake occurred on the Denali fault. It was the strongest earthquake ever recorded on the Denali fault.
To put that in perspective, that was 10 times stronger that the 1906 earthquake which destroyed San Francisco.
The ground under the pipeline moved 7 1/2 feet horizontally, and 2 1/2 feet vertically. The violent shaking damaged a few of the pipeline's supports near the fault, but that was it. It just required minor repairs.
The description of the measures taken to protect the pipeline against earthquakes might be hard to visualize, so here is a view of the pipeline at the Denali fault.
What does this have to do with the Pebble mine?
Environmentalists, and other anti-Pebble foes, including the {Sierra Club}, that was opposed to the Trans Alaska Pipeline, insist that not even engineering ingenuity will make it possible to build a mine that can withstand a strong earthquake.
As shown by the Trans Alaska Pipeline, this argument has no substance. There is no way to know what ingenuity can accomplish.
Critics say
It is not a matter of IF, but WHEN a catastrophic Pebble mine failure will occur because of the strong earthquake's in the area
Even though there is earthquake activity in Alaska, including the massive 1964, magnitude 9.2 earthquake, which occurred in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska, and which many environmentalists point to and say it would destroy the Pebble mine if it happened again, it, in fact, did not affect the Pebble site.
The closest earthquake fault to the Pebble site is the Lake Clark Fault. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) concluded that there have been {No Earthquakes} along the Lake Clark Fault in the last 1.8 million years.
Northern Dynasty's proposed mine would be able to withstand an earthquake stronger than any that have occurred in the area in the last {2,500 years,} as determined by the United States Geological Survey.
Some critics have said that the area's earthquake faults could extend under the Pebble mine site, and that if a 7.8 magnitude earthquake occurred directly under the Pebble mine, it would cause a catastrophic failure of the mine.
The reason no earthquake faults have been found under the Pebble site, is because, if any are there, they were too small to have been uncovered by the USGS mapping of the area.
The magnitude of an earthquake is related to the size of the fault.
The Pebble mine has been designed to withstand a 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurring directly under it. A 6.5 magnitude earthquake is an extremely powerful earthquake and it would not be possible for a small fault to produce an earthquake even close to that magnitude. Any earthquake that could happen, would be less than that.
Critics say that that is not possible to build a mine that could withstand a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, but already there are mines that have been built to withstand earthquakes even stronger than a 7.8 magnitude earthquake.
Chile is a seismically active region, and in 1960 experienced a magnitude 9.5 earthquake, the highest ever recorded by modern instruments. Because of its seismic-risk status, its mines, some of which are the largest in the world, are built to withstand the massive earthquakes of the region, and none have failed.
Neighboring Peru, which is also earthquake prone, has some of the world’s highest tailing dams for large-scale operating mines. Tailings facilities at the Cerro Verde and Antamina mines are reaching heights of 820 feet and 886 feet, respectively.
These modern tailings facilities in Peru are designed and built to withstand intense, high-magnitude earthquakes. The height of their embankments are much greater than any that are proposed for the Pebble Project.
Critics were besides themselves, screaming that the Pebble dams would be so high that they were bound to fail. Pebbles' original dam was going to be 740 feet tall. The newer, smaller version, will be 600 feet tall. Both are significantly shorter than the Peru mines. And just like the Peru mines, they will be able to withstand intense, high-magnitude earthquakes. But of course, the critics knew this.
Critics point to the recent Mount Polley tailing dam disaster of 2014, because the designer, Knight-Piesold will build the Pebble mine.
Therefore, critics say, Pebble's tailing dam will also fail.
Their argument doesn't hold water, pun intended.
During construction, the company {ran short of rock fill} in the area, the material used in the construction of the dam. In response to having less building material, and against Knight-Piesold's objections, they made the dam thinner.
The second problem was that the dam was built over a layer of glacial lacustrine soil (glacial silt), 25 feet under the ground. When subjected to increasing pressure, it changes from a solid, to a fluid. This is what happened when it was subjected to the increasing weight and pressure from the toxic waste and water that was accumulating behind the Mount Polley earthen dam.
Northern Dynasty is having an independent peer review group of scientists critique Knight-Piesold's engineering company's plans, and states that the regulators will follow the peer review groups' recommendations.
Northern Dynasty chose Knight-Piesold to construct the Pebble mine because of their extensive knowledge and expertise in building giant mines. The Pebble mine will be built to strict specifications as overseen by the government and scientific peer groups.
How are the valuable metals extracted, what ends up being discarded, why is it toxic
The most dangerous part of a mine is the toxic liquid wastes which are held in place behind a tailing dam. If a section of the dam breaks, the acidic water, and its accompanying toxic slurry, would pour out into the surrounding area, including any nearby streams and rivers,devastating
the area.
What are tailings? They are what are left over after the minerals have been extracted from the ore:
To extract the copper, molybdenum, and gold etc. from the ore (rock that contains the metals) the rock is crushed into finely ground particles (150 micron size).
The crushed ore is transported to large froth flotation tanks filled with water mixed with chemical agents that form bubbles (froth) as well as chemicals that help separate metals from the rock substrate. This slurry of crushed ore and water, is conveyed along the length of the tank, where air is injected through the bottom of the tank. The injected air causes bubbles to rise up through the slurry, and then rise to the surface of the water.
One of the chemicals in the water, is the frother promoter, which strengthens and stabilizes the bubble's surface so that it doesn't burst, but stays as a froth on top of the water. The water also contains bipolar chemicals, in which one side of the molecule attaches to a specific metal, such as copper, and the other side of the molecule attaches to the surface of the bubbles. The bubbles then transport the copper, etc. to the surface of the tank as froth.
As the slurry makes its way towards the terminal end of the tank, paddles skim off the froth as it forms. The froth is transported through a series of tanks, which contain depressant chemicals. Each tank contains a depressing compound which acts on a specific metal, such as copper, and depresses its ability to adhere to the froth, causing it to sink to the bottom of the tank. In this way the different metals are separated into their own tanks, and then can be further concentrated.
At the end of the process, the water, along with its residual chemicals, is recycled, while the slurry which has had the economical metals extracted, and is at the tail end of the flotation tank, is discharged into a collecting site, and forms, what's called a tailing pond, which is contained behind a dam, called a tailing dam.
This slurry contains pulverized pyrite, FeS, a left over, non-valuable ore. The sulfur in the numerous tiny particles of pulverized pyrite readily react with the oxygen in the air, and the water in the holding pond, to form a solution of sulfuric acid - battery acid.
The Pebble deposit also contains small amounts of arsenic and heavy metals, such as cadmium, all of which would be dissolved by the sulfuric acid and go into solution, making the tailings pond's contents {toxic} as well as acidic.
The future belongs to the optimist.
Alaska Peninsula Corporation Signed a Land Access Agreement with Pebble Partnership.
{Greg Anelon} also lives in Newhalen, a dot of a village in Southwestern Alaska, next to Iliamna, its sister village. Both villages are about 15 miles from where the Pebble mine will be located.
Greg Anelon wants to raise his children in the area, but doesn't see a future for his village without the mine and the development that will result from it; namely, inexpensive electricity from the Pebble power plant, which will also help the other villages in the area. The low cost fuel that the mine will be bringing to the area, and the roads that Northern Dynasty will build, will also benefit the area.
Before Pebble arrived, the villages of Iliamna and Newhalen were in severe decline: no jobs, no money, escalating food and fuel costs. Few could afford the fuel and equipment needed to commercially fish the prized sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay.
Anelon agrees fish are more important than gold, but first it has to be shown that the Pebble mine will be a danger to the salmon. Plus the salmon are becoming less financially relevant to the people in the area. That is because, even for the residents that aren't directly involved in salmon fishing, they still can't benefit during the fishing season, by getting jobs processing the fish, because more than 86% of seafood processing jobs in Bristol Bay go to non-Alaskan residents. He notes that few residents in his area can make ends meet solely through commercial fishing.
" I see enough infrastructure in the area to keep our village alive. Another village in the area, Pedro Bay, lost its school last fall because of too few children attending. "I'll do anything to make sure the kids live in the village and stay in school."
Another Native Alaska group, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation stated: "The nation's environmental laws are premised on the belief that science, rather than the kind of general information and speculation contained in the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment (BBWA), should govern decisions."
More Native Alaskan's are for the mine than people realize
Some of the FAKE FACTS anti-Pebble groups are using
FOREMOST
HOW IMPORTANT ARE THE SALMON
TO NATIVE ALASKAN'S?
2018 was the highest sockeye salmon run in Bristol Bay since 1980. {Half} of the Bristol Bay residents are Native Alaskan's, but few were able to take part in the orgy of salmon fishing that was taking place.
In order to prevent over fishing of the salmon, in 1973, Alaska created a limited entry system that capped the number of permits of salmon fishing boats. The permit holders can hold on to the permits, or sell them.
Major foreign fishing conglomerates ended up with {64%} of the permits. Native Alaskan families, and Alaskan residents, held the other 36% of the permits, and this was enough permits to service the Alaskan residents and Native Alaskans that wanted to be involved in salmon fishing. However, the number of Native Alaskan families involved in salmon fishing has been steadily dropping, and by 2013 81% of the permits belonged to non-Alaskan holders. That trend is still continuing.
Once a family sells a permit, it is basically gone, because they are so expensive to buy back. It can {cost} up to $200,000 to buy a permit.
Alaskan youth are no longer committing to a salmon {fishing career} and so their family permits may end up being sold.
It used to be that an Alaskan Native, or resident, would get into their trawler and go salmon fishing when the salmon were running. They would spend all day fishing, before heading in to shore. They did not pack the salmon in ice because their trawlers did not have the capability to produce ice, and they did not buy the ice on shore, because the high cost of electricity made ice too expensive to buy, especially with the large amount of ice needed. And most did not have a refrigerated hold in which to put the salmon.
Very few people can afford to buy one of the new fishing vessels that are equipped with a refrigeration unit, because they cost $400,000.
Upgrading their present trawler with a refrigerated sea water system would cost $30,000 for the system itself. In addition to that, the trawler would require expensive hydraulic modifications, fish hold modifications, and other renovations. Again, too expensive for most people.
A salmon pulled out of water and left in the hold at 59 degrees F for 4 hours, will lose a day of shelf life (equivalent to how long they would be on a grocers shelf). It would lose even more shelf life if the temperature was above that. Because the ships are out in the large bay all day, the salmon could be in the hold for multiples of the four hours, which would mean that they could have lost many days of shelf life before the ship made it back to shore.
Even so, all the salmon would look fresh. Because of that, it used to be that Native Alaskan fishermen/fisherwomen, would get a decent price for their salmon. But now, a hand held device from from {Seafood Analytics,} can indicate how far the salmon have deteriorated. For years, buyers have been paying Native Alaskan fishermen less and less for their catch, because they were not putting the salmon on ice. Starting this year the buyers are {refusing} to buy salmon that have not been put on ice after being caught. Very few Native Alaskan's will be able to meet these requirements.
Most of the salmon {harvesting} takes place between June and and August.
During the rest of the year, Native Alaskan's, even the ones that still own fishing boats, need to find work, and there are few jobs available.
Activist's keep saying that Native Alaskan's have been fishing for salmon for thousands of years. That the salmon need to be protected in order that Native Alaskan's can retain their way of life, and financial livelihood that they earn by fishing the salmon.
That has been taken over by out of state commercial fishing fleets.
< Salmon fishing is no longer a way of life >
<<< for Native Alaskan's >>>
Critics say Pebble mine will only last 20 years,
The Pebble deposit has only been partially explored, but it is already
expected to last for {100 years.}
Pebble is a giant ore deposit. World wide, other mines of comparable size, stay in production for well over a hundred years, such as
Chuquicamata, which has been in production since 1910.
What are the arguments that critics are using against the Pebble mine
Opponents say the ore grade is so low that it would not be economically feasible to build a mine.
Pebble contains a concentration of 0.61% equivalent copper (Eq Cu). Seabridge has the KSM mine whose copper concentration of 0.61% Eq Cu, is similar to Pebble, and Seabridge's mine is very profitable. There are even profitable mines with grades as {0.15%.}
Most major mines have cash costs of more than $1 per pound of copper. They are still very profitable mines, because the price of copper is over $2.50/pound. The Pebble mine would have cash costs of {$0.53} per pound of copper. A world class low copper cost mine.
Pebble would be one of the most profitable copper mines in the world
.................................................................................
People have also been led to believe that Pebble is next to Bristol Bay, but it is {100 air miles} and 230 river miles from Bristol Bay. They have been led to believe that any tailing's spillage will empty directly into the rivers and streams flowing into Bristol Bay. Supposing that there was spillage; unlike what the environmentalists state, the Pebble mine will only be near tributaries that account for less than {1%} of the Bristol Bay Drainage system.
The EPA, in its opposition to the Pebble mine, said that Pebble would devastate the area because it was near the headwaters of the ecologically sensitive Kvichak and Nuahagak watersheds.
But the Upper Talarik Creek is not the headwaters of the Kvichak River, and the Koktuli River is not the headwaters of the Nushagak River.
Opponents say
The Pebble area is earthquake prone
It is impossible for Pebble to be designed to withstand the strong earthquakes that occur in Alaska
This is the same argument that was made about the Trans Alaska Pipeline. What insights can be gained from that debate?
The Sierra Club asserted that the pipeline had basic design flaws which could not be overcome, even by engineering ingenuity, because the pipeline would cross the Denali fault, one of the most active and most powerful earthquake zones in the world.
A report from {top ecologists} at the Department of the Interior claimed that any one of 23 major earthquakes of the last 70 years would have caused a catastrophic break in the proposed pipeline.
According to the standards for building pipelines at that time, their conjecture was true. But they, and the Sierra Club, were wrong in thinking that ingenuity could not overcome the problems poised by earthquakes.
The oil companies were able {design} a pipeline capable of withstanding an 8.5 magnitude earthquake. The pipeline specification was for it to be 48 inches in diameter. Normally, that large a pipeline is easily ruptured, but they found a company in Japan that was making 48 inch pipelines with elastic properties so that it could bend under pressure, such as would occur during an earthquake, and return to its original form when the pressure subsided.
To test it under even more extreme circumstances, a section of the proposed pipeline was attached to huge frames, and massive loads were applied so that the pipeline wrinkled, and buckled, and finally folded in on itself, but it still did not rupture, and was even able to hold its pressure.
Over active fault areas, the pipeline was attached to sliders with Teflon shoes that were free to slide on long horizontal steel beams so that the pipeline could move 20 feet sideways if the ground moved sideways during an earthequake.
The pipeline was built with a series of curves so that it could stretch like an accordion if the ground move lengthwise.
The pipeline was flexible enough, and was attached to the beams in such a way, that it could move vertically, up or down, a distance of 5 feet.
Years later, after the pipeline was built, this was put to the test. On November 3, 2002, a 7.9 earthquake occurred on the Denali fault. It was the strongest earthquake ever recorded on the Denali fault.
To put that in perspective, that was 10 times stronger that the 1906 earthquake which destroyed San Francisco.
The ground under the pipeline moved 7 1/2 feet horizontally, and 2 1/2 feet vertically. The violent shaking damaged a few of the pipeline's supports near the fault, but that was it. It just required minor repairs.
The description of the measures taken to protect the pipeline against earthquakes might be hard to visualize, so here is a view of the pipeline at the Denali fault.
What does this have to do with the Pebble mine?
Environmentalists, and other anti-Pebble foes, including the {Sierra Club}, that was opposed to the Trans Alaska Pipeline, insist that not even engineering ingenuity will make it possible to build a mine that can withstand a strong earthquake.
As shown by the Trans Alaska Pipeline, this argument has no substance. There is no way to know what ingenuity can accomplish.
Critics say
It is not a matter of IF, but WHEN a catastrophic Pebble mine failure will occur because of the strong earthquake's in the area
Even though there is earthquake activity in Alaska, including the massive 1964, magnitude 9.2 earthquake, which occurred in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska, and which many environmentalists point to and say it would destroy the Pebble mine if it happened again, it, in fact, did not affect the Pebble site.
The closest earthquake fault to the Pebble site is the Lake Clark Fault. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) concluded that there have been {No Earthquakes} along the Lake Clark Fault in the last 1.8 million years.
Northern Dynasty's proposed mine would be able to withstand an earthquake stronger than any that have occurred in the area in the last {2,500 years,} as determined by the United States Geological Survey.
Some critics have said that the area's earthquake faults could extend under the Pebble mine site, and that if a 7.8 magnitude earthquake occurred directly under the Pebble mine, it would cause a catastrophic failure of the mine.
The reason no earthquake faults have been found under the Pebble site, is because, if any are there, they were too small to have been uncovered by the USGS mapping of the area.
The magnitude of an earthquake is related to the size of the fault.
The Pebble mine has been designed to withstand a 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurring directly under it. A 6.5 magnitude earthquake is an extremely powerful earthquake and it would not be possible for a small fault to produce an earthquake even close to that magnitude. Any earthquake that could happen, would be less than that.
Critics say that that is not possible to build a mine that could withstand a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, but already there are mines that have been built to withstand earthquakes even stronger than a 7.8 magnitude earthquake.
Chile is a seismically active region, and in 1960 experienced a magnitude 9.5 earthquake, the highest ever recorded by modern instruments. Because of its seismic-risk status, its mines, some of which are the largest in the world, are built to withstand the massive earthquakes of the region, and none have failed.
Neighboring Peru, which is also earthquake prone, has some of the world’s highest tailing dams for large-scale operating mines. Tailings facilities at the Cerro Verde and Antamina mines are reaching heights of 820 feet and 886 feet, respectively.
These modern tailings facilities in Peru are designed and built to withstand intense, high-magnitude earthquakes. The height of their embankments are much greater than any that are proposed for the Pebble Project.
Critics were besides themselves, screaming that the Pebble dams would be so high that they were bound to fail. Pebbles' original dam was going to be 740 feet tall. The newer, smaller version, will be 600 feet tall. Both are significantly shorter than the Peru mines. And just like the Peru mines, they will be able to withstand intense, high-magnitude earthquakes. But of course, the critics knew this.
Critics point to the recent Mount Polley tailing dam disaster of 2014, because the designer, Knight-Piesold will build the Pebble mine.
Therefore, critics say, Pebble's tailing dam will also fail.
Their argument doesn't hold water, pun intended.
During construction, the company {ran short of rock fill} in the area, the material used in the construction of the dam. In response to having less building material, and against Knight-Piesold's objections, they made the dam thinner.
The second problem was that the dam was built over a layer of glacial lacustrine soil (glacial silt), 25 feet under the ground. When subjected to increasing pressure, it changes from a solid, to a fluid. This is what happened when it was subjected to the increasing weight and pressure from the toxic waste and water that was accumulating behind the Mount Polley earthen dam.
Northern Dynasty is having an independent peer review group of scientists critique Knight-Piesold's engineering company's plans, and states that the regulators will follow the peer review groups' recommendations.
Northern Dynasty chose Knight-Piesold to construct the Pebble mine because of their extensive knowledge and expertise in building giant mines. The Pebble mine will be built to strict specifications as overseen by the government and scientific peer groups.
How are the valuable metals extracted, what ends up being discarded, why is it toxic
The most dangerous part of a mine is the toxic liquid wastes which are held in place behind a tailing dam. If a section of the dam breaks, the acidic water, and its accompanying toxic slurry, would pour out into the surrounding area, including any nearby streams and rivers,devastating
the area.
What are tailings? They are what are left over after the minerals have been extracted from the ore:
To extract the copper, molybdenum, and gold etc. from the ore (rock that contains the metals) the rock is crushed into finely ground particles (150 micron size).
The crushed ore is transported to large froth flotation tanks filled with water mixed with chemical agents that form bubbles (froth) as well as chemicals that help separate metals from the rock substrate. This slurry of crushed ore and water, is conveyed along the length of the tank, where air is injected through the bottom of the tank. The injected air causes bubbles to rise up through the slurry, and then rise to the surface of the water.
One of the chemicals in the water, is the frother promoter, which strengthens and stabilizes the bubble's surface so that it doesn't burst, but stays as a froth on top of the water. The water also contains bipolar chemicals, in which one side of the molecule attaches to a specific metal, such as copper, and the other side of the molecule attaches to the surface of the bubbles. The bubbles then transport the copper, etc. to the surface of the tank as froth.
As the slurry makes its way towards the terminal end of the tank, paddles skim off the froth as it forms. The froth is transported through a series of tanks, which contain depressant chemicals. Each tank contains a depressing compound which acts on a specific metal, such as copper, and depresses its ability to adhere to the froth, causing it to sink to the bottom of the tank. In this way the different metals are separated into their own tanks, and then can be further concentrated.
At the end of the process, the water, along with its residual chemicals, is recycled, while the slurry which has had the economical metals extracted, and is at the tail end of the flotation tank, is discharged into a collecting site, and forms, what's called a tailing pond, which is contained behind a dam, called a tailing dam.
This slurry contains pulverized pyrite, FeS, a left over, non-valuable ore. The sulfur in the numerous tiny particles of pulverized pyrite readily react with the oxygen in the air, and the water in the holding pond, to form a solution of sulfuric acid - battery acid.
The Pebble deposit also contains small amounts of arsenic and heavy metals, such as cadmium, all of which would be dissolved by the sulfuric acid and go into solution, making the tailings pond's contents {toxic} as well as acidic.
The future belongs to the optimist.
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