The Sundance Kid ‘Stings' Alaska's Pebble gold mining mega-project

Robert Redford-director of A River Runs Through It, which helped stimulate mine pollution clean-up in Montana's Blackfoot River-has targeted the Pebble project and protection of Alaska's Bristol Bay.

Author: Dorothy Kosich
Posted: Friday , 22 Apr 2011

RENO, NV -

Academy-award winning director, actor and environmental activist, Robert Redford, Thursday became the latest face of those opposed to the development of the massive Pebble copper-gold mining project near Bristol Bay in Alaska.

In a blog published on the Huffington Post political website, Redford claimed, "I am not against mining. I am against putting mega-mines where they don't belong."

Redford complained about the impacts of Rio Tinto's "massive Bingham Canyon Mine," one of the "biggest man-made excavations on Earth." He claimed Bingham Canyon "has rendered a large area of local groundwater too polluted for human consumption."

"Now the Rio Tinto and Anglo American companies want to put a mine even bigger than Bingham at the headwaters of our planet's greatest wild salmon river systems in Bristol Bay, Alaska," said the director of the film A River Runs Through It.

"It's an environmental tragedy waiting to happen," Redford declared. "Their Pebble Mine would be gouged out of an American paradise-filled with salmon, bears, moose, caribou, wolves and whales-that has sustained Native Communities for years."

"Anglo American's history is littered with one pollution disaster after another; from Zimbabwe to Nevada," Redford asserted. "Rio Tinto has left a trail of toxic contamination that spans the globe: from Indonesia to Bolivia to Utah."

"Do you trust these companies to take a catastrophic risk with one of our last and greatest wild places?" said the developer of Utah's Sundance Ski Resort.

In his blog article for the Huffington Post, Redford did not mention which mining operations he does not oppose.

Redford is also the face of a National Resources Defense Council advertisement, urging Pebble project opponents to send the following e-mail to Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese and Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll:

"I am adamantly opposed to construction of the Pebble Mine in Alaska's spectacular Bristol Bay watershed. It would be unconscionable to build this mega-mine -- with its colossal dams that must hold back an estimated 10 billion tons of contaminated mining waste forever -- at the headwaters of our planet's greatest wild salmon river systems.

"Some risks are simply too big to take -- especially in an active earthquake zone like Bristol Bay. I am familiar with your company's long and dismal record of polluting the environment. I don't want you gambling with one of our last and greatest wild places -- an ecosystem that supports world-renowned salmon runs, a vast array of wildlife, Native communities and thousands of sustainable jobs in fishing and tourism.

"I urge you to accept the will of local residents, more than 80 percent of whom oppose the Pebble Mine.

"The Mitsubishi Corporation recently ended its participation in this misguided venture. I call on you to do the same.

"Please abandon your plans for the Pebble Mine. If you do not, I can promise you will face relentless opposition from a growing movement of people around the world."

The NRDC claims that more than 300,000 Americans have expressed their opposition to the Pebble Project, which is believed to contain 80.6 billion pounds of copper, 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum, 107.4 million ounces of gold, and what the Pebble Partnership calls "commercially significant amounts of silver, rhenium and palladium."

Pebble is currently in a pre-feasibility and pre-permitting research stage which includes "some of the most extensive environmental studies ever undertaken in Alaska," according to the partnership.

The Pebble Partnership is an Alaskan partnership between Anglo American and junior mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals.