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The Future of Alaska’s Bristol Bay Region and the Pebble Mine Project
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The Future of Alaska’s Bristol Bay Region and the Pebble Mine Project

The debate surrounding the Pebble Mine Project in Southwest Alaska pits a mining conglomerate against one of the world's most iconic fisheries.

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Last week, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy spent part of her tour of Alaska hearing local opinions on the proposed Pebble Mine project, an operation that a recent article in The Washington Post called “the biggest environmental decision facing Obama you’ve never heard of.”

While the planned gigantic open-pit mine in Southwest Alaska has been in the works for roughly a decade, many of the details pertaining to the Pebble Mine and its operation remain under wraps. What the developers—the Pebble Limited Partnership—have been very forthcoming about, however, is the richness of their discovery, which they claim is the largest untapped copper resource left on the planet. They believe it could produce as much as half a trillion dollars in revenue.

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