Will Alaska sack-up for clean water on Aug. 26?

A few words by Ryan at thebigpull explaining the outcome of Alaska’s ballot measure 4.

As I do about twice a year, I just re-watched all the Star Wars movies.  I know, it’s the cheesiest, most tired thing to muse on in all of pop culture.  Analogies to it roll my own eyes.  Ok, I’m starting over.

I just found myself examining mythology and what makes it endure.  The reason mythologies endure is because they tap into timeless, essential human conceptions of morality.   They engage the question of what is good and what is bad and render real-life shades of gray into simple blacks and whites.  Everyone can understand and relate. Sometimes, though, real events themselves prove to be tests of this same simple moral understanding of good and bad.  For that reason, those events stay in the history books forever; the American Revolution, the Second World War, the Wold Trade Center attacks, the Pebble Mine project in Alaska, for example.

By now, you either know all about Pebble, or you should.  It represents the bad, dark side of human greed and self interest, and it is trying to subjugate the good, correctness of a salmon-based ecosystem zooming along on auto-pilot. Literally everyone – even the proponents of the mine – understands that by putting the biggest open-pit mine in North America in the middle of the most vital salmon habitat left on Earth, we are compromising a thing we all believe is good. But some are more willing than others to suspend disbelief for even a whiff of self aggrandizement.

Yesterday the citizens of Alaska voted on a ballot initiative that would have gone some way toward blocking development of Pebble.  It failed by 10 percentage points.

I’m kind of speechless.  All I could come up with was this bleeding heart Star Wars thing.  But my dear friend, Taro Satake, has written eloquently on the build-up to and denouement of the vote.  Thank you, Taro.

Check it, yo: Down, but not out… [scroll to the bottom for Taro’s vote entry]

On August 26th Alaskan voters will get a chance to vote on “Ballot Measure 4,” a proposed state law that would seek tougher pollution standards for new, gigantic mining operations. Drafted by opponents of the Pebble Mine, “The Clean Water Initiative” would ban new metal mines over 640 acres in size from discharging harmful amounts of evil pollutants into salmon streams and drinking water resources. [yay]

The mining industry says the initiative’s wording is too vague and it might end up banning any discharges of those evil pollutants, no matter whether they are harmful, or prevent mines from getting new permits. [cry me a river] We’ll keep you updated. This is obviously a pretty big deal. Currently Red Gold is showing about as often as Bat Man Returns all over Alaska as Trout Unlimited helps to spread awareness of the Pebble Mine issue and encourage people to vote “YES” on ballot Measure 4.” —tellurideknight [facts borrowed from The Anchorage Daily News]