Homer Alaska - Letters

The exploratory permit for PacRim Coal to build its massive proposed Chuitna coal strip mine should not be renewed. This project most likely will pollute fisheries, destroy wildlife habitat on the 55-square mile site, degrade Cook Inlet water quality, and impair the health of Cook Inlet residents and wildlife (i.e. mercury in water, air pollution from coal dust).

Coal is old, dirty technology and strip mining is the worst, most destructive extraction method. A strip mine that will be allowed to mine right through a salmon stream sets a terrible precedence for fisheries management in a state that has worked hard to protect its fisheries. Allowing roughly 7 million gallons of mine waste and polluting runoff to affect the Chuitna River is unconscionable. The DNR has a responsibility to protect these renewable resources and should not let an unsustainable industry destroy an important renewable fishery, its habitat and its water source.

Giving Pac-Rim the right to continue its exploratory work for a project on public land that will destroy public fish, water and wildlife habitat is not in the state's best long-term interest.

The legacy of dirty coal in the eastern United States should be a caution to all of us. Big coal has destroyed towns, buried watersheds, poisoned the waters and residents, and broken many promises to the people there. An industry with so much destructive potential is not what we should invite to this relatively unspoiled part of the world. Nor should we ever allow a project that would destroy a major salmon stream.

DNR should take a leadership role for renewable energy and other sustainable industries like fisheries by saying no to the renewal of PacRim's exploratory lease, a step that will help the Cook Inlet region by moving us away from dirty coal. Comments can be sent to DNR via e-mail to russell.kirkham@alaska.gov by 5 p.m. on Sept. 24.

Nina Faust