Fort Knox Mine leaks cyanide, as reported last week by the Anchorage Daily News. Red Dog mine is the biggest Environmental Protection Agency hazard in the United States, as it expends the most airborne debris of all mines nationally. Head down to Montana, question residents that live near closed mines about what they think of mining and the resultant polluting of their rivers. Research mining worldwide on the Internet and I guarantee you’ll get sick to your stomach. The Pebble Mine should never be allowed to be permitted, as we can’t risk the true Bristol Bay gold — the sockeye salmon industry.

I really don’t care what former Speaker of the House Gail Phillips (the paid mining lobbyist and how much is she getting paid?) has to say or what any poll concludes, allowing the Pebble Mine is like asking Satan to step into the sandals of Jesus Christ. I have a feeling that Jay Hammond is rolling rocks down from heaven on the heads of those who would take a chance of contaminating one glass of water or one sockeye/trout in the Bristol Bay region.

Subsistence hunting/fishing are highest on the priority list in this state and we can never take the chance of losing one animal to contamination. Sport and commercial fishing are second on the list, as they provide income to residents and tax dollars to our state coffers. These renewable resources will be here forever if we protect them for future generations.

I’m a drift-netter in the Bay, and I enjoy feeding the world. I like my sockeye fillet barbecued or baked, but I can do without the arsenic or cyanide seasoning that Northern Dynasty might serve up with a mine.