"Dirty Gold"

Jewelers say they won't buy Pebble prospect's 'dirty gold'

By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
Companies call for protection of river drainages

Some businesses refuse to sell salmon from fish farms or "conflict diamonds" from war-torn countries.

Now, gold from Alaska's massive Pebble mineral deposit is apparently off the menu for some jewelers.

On Tuesday, two days before Valentine's Day, five major jewelers, including Tiffany & Co., announced they are against using "dirty gold" from Pebble, a large and controversial copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska, because of possible risks to the region's salmon fisheries.

Pebble is controversial due to its massive size and its location at the headwaters of two of the five major river drainages that feed Bristol Bay's world-class salmon fisheries. If developed, it could be the largest gold-copper mine in the world, providing hundreds of jobs in a region where jobs are scarce, according to the mining companies involved. However, the companies have not yet finished exploring the deposit, north of Iliamna, and they haven't submitted any plans to state officials to develop a mine.

"This is the first time that we've seen jewelers take a stance ... against a particular mine," said Steve D'Esposito, president of Earthworks, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that endorses environmental and social criteria for global mining companies. His group unveiled the anti-Pebble pledge on Tuesday.

In the pledge, the jewelers requested permanent protection of five major river drainages in Bristol Bay from "large-scale" metal mining.

Opposition to Pebble has been brewing in Alaska over the past few years, bringing together unlikely allies such as some nearby Native villages and Native corporations, commercial fishermen, sport fishermen and hunters, subsistence users, Bristol Bay lodge owners and national environmental groups....

Last winter, an anti-Pebble coalition placed full-page ads in National Jeweler magazine, urging U.S. jewelry retailers to boycott gold from Pebble.

The ad campaign apparently worked. Joining Tiffany and Ben Bridge, four other jewelers pledged their opposition to Pebble and mining in the Bristol Bay region: Missouri-based Helzberg Diamonds, New York-based Fortunoff, Illinois-based Leber Jewelers and Robb Blake, of Blake's Fine Jewelry in Eagle River.

Pebble's developers point out that less than 5 percent of Pebble's potential output would be gold. "About 95 percent of the metal that Pebble would produce is copper," Magee said.

The gold would be a byproduct of Pebble's copper concentrate, he explained.

Still, Pebble's gold resource is potentially huge. Northern Dynasty estimates that Pebble contains up to 81.7 million ounces of gold, worth $73.5 billion at recent prices.

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