Lake Clark National Park and Preserve
About Lake Clark | Risks to Lake Clark | What You Can Do
Risks to Lake Clark
Lake Clark is often best-known as the iconic wilderness home of Dick Proenneke, an Alaskan pioneer who's personal videos and journals were memorialized in the PBS documentary film Alone in the Wilderness and the 1973 book One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey. Proenneke's simple, self-reliant lifestyle and low-impact ethics have struck a chord with generations. His cabin is now maintained by Park Service volunteers as a living museum and Proenneke's hand-written note on the cabin wall still wonders, "Is it proper that the wilderness and its creatures should suffer because we came?"
Pebble Mine’s Potential Risks
Although proponents of the mine cite staggering profits, jobs, and local revenue as potential benefits, building Pebble Mine could lay the foundation for an industrial mining district and the risks to the area are enormous.
- Pebble Mine may employ both open-pit and underground mining techniques, to depths of 2,000 and 6,000 feet. Hydrology connections to nearby Lake Clark and Lake Iliamna, Alaska's largest freshwater lakes with maximum depths of 1,000 feet, are being closely examined.The Pebble ore body contains sulfides, so acid mine drainage may be unavoidable. Water treatment facilities would operate in perpetuity—forever—to try to prevent contamination of drinking water and salmon habitat.
The mining process would produce millions of tons of potentially reactive waste to be stored in two giant tailings ponds enclosed by four earthen dams. The largest earthen dam, measuring more than 4 miles long and 740 feet high, would be located approximately 10 miles from the active 135-mile Lake Clark Fault.
A 104-mile industrial haul road between the Pebble mining district and a new proposed port on Iniskin Bay would be constructed, running roughly parallel to the southern boundary of the park, coming as close as two miles and crossing numerous salmon spawning rivers and streams.
A new major power source would be required to generate 250-400 megawatts, more energy than the city of Anchorage currently uses. A new natural gas generation facility on the Kenai Peninsula, which would require transmission lines being buried beneath Cook Inlet and erected along the access road, is just one option under consideration.
“There aren’t any examples around the world where a large open-pit mine and a vibrant tourism industry co-exist. It’s never been done.”
-- Dan Oberlatz, Alaska Alpine Adventures, from “A Pebble in the Water”, National Parks Magazine, Spring 2009
Lake Clark and Katmai National Parks and Preserves lie in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, protecting a portion of the region’s clean waters, wild salmon habitat and traditional, subsistence resources. But an industrial mining, district just a few miles outside Lake Clark National Preserve, could penetrate the boundaries of our national parks and create a gauntlet of contaminated waters that salmon must attempt to migrate through in order to reach spawning grounds in the freshwaters of Lake Clark.
California, Oregon and Washington’s wild salmon runs have been devastated by changes to their ecosystems from dams, mining, logging, and urbanization. In those places, salmon protection is focused on restoration efforts. In Bristol Bay, we are focused on protecting a natural environment that is still intact. NPCA is committed to protecting our renewable resources, sustainable economies and the integrity of our neighboring national parks from degradation caused by the proposed Pebble Mine and adjacent mining district.
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