Facts
- Governor Sean Parnell has said several times he will “never trade one resource for another.”
- PacRim Coal, a Delaware corporation, is actively seeking state and federal permits to build and operate the Chuitna coal strip mine 45 miles west of Anchorage, near the communities of Tyonek and Beluga.
- PacRim clearly states: “approximately 17.4 km [11 miles] of total stream-channel [salmon] habitat will be removed during the mining operations;”
- Allowing PacRim to mine through a salmon stream will set a dangerous precedent for the state of Alaska. If they can do it here, they can do it anywhere.
- Scientific experts concur, it is not possible to construct a new wild salmon spawning stream to the same level of productivity after mining ends.
- PacRim has not provided a single example of a strip-mined wild salmon spawning and rearing habitat that has been restored to premining productivity.
- Extensive searches of scientific literature have not produced any examples of successful restoration of a strip mined-wild salmon stream.
- Stripmining will interrupt groundwater flow and destroy the shallow aquifers that currently provide groundwater to streams.
- The uninterrupted flow of shallow groundwater to wild salmon spawning streams is essential for over-winter survival of eggs and fry.
- Recreating the structural complexity and interconnectivity of the below-ground sediment layers responsible for the transport of ground water into salmon streams is impossible.
- The long-term loss of marine-derived nutrients and wetlands (primary sources of nutrients for wild salmon streams) from 25+ years of proposed mining makes the restoration of biological productivity impossible.
- The complex system of surface and groundwater exchange at the streambed is responsible for the year-round upwelling of water critical for over-winter survival for wild salmon eggs and cannot be recreated.
- Mining through the tributaries and uplands of the Chuit River will permanently change the ecosystem and decrease the productivity of the river.
- Mining through the Chuit River headwaters will remove stored carbon and nutrients that are vital for the health of all downstream reaches; once removed they can not be replaced.
- There is no evidence that the proposed restoration and mitigation plans will compensate for the natural resource losses.
- The complex, genetically diverse wild Alaskan salmon stocks found in the Chuit River, a key to long term viability—cannot be recreated.
