From the press release we sent out today with Nunamta Aulukestai and Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association:
BRISTOL BAY, ALASKA, Feb. 9 — Valentine’s Day is the biggest holiday for sales of gold jewelry in the U.S., and these days, many love-struck sweethearts want to know where their gold comes from. This year leading jewelers, commercial fishermen and Alaska Natives all want to make sure it doesn’t come from a monster open-pit mine that would threaten the world’s largest wild salmon fishery.
Fifty-four jewelers, representing more than $5.75 billion in annual sales, have pledged not to use gold from the proposed Pebble Mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska. The mine, a project of Anglo American PLC of London and Northern Dynasty Minerals of Vancouver, B.C., would be the largest open-pit mine in North America, and generate up to 10 billion tons of toxic waste that would be disposed in the Bristol Bay watershed.