Woody, a scientific consultant for Trout Unlimited and the Renewable Resources Coalition, said Alaska residents need to take into account how the mine's need for water, the threat of pollution from tailings ponds, and potential earthquakes, volcanoes and floods could affect Bristol Bay, the largest wild sockeye salmon fishery in the world.

Spokesmen for Northern Dynasty, which is in the midst of extensive exploration at the Southwestern Alaska site, at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, have said they plan to construct tailings ponds that can withstand an earthquake of 8.7 magnitude.

“But what about lots and lots of little earthquakes, or several earthquakes in a row?” Woody asked. “What's the risk of failure there?”

The answer to these and many other questions about potential environmental damage is unknown, because of a lack of datA on the region, she said.

Proponents of the proposed copper, gold and molybdenum mine have been invited to address the Anchorage group on the same issue in October. Northern Dynasty, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based firm, has already invested millions of dollars into the project. According to Northern Dynasty, the mine can be built in an environmentally safe manner, provide substantial economic value to the region and tax dollars to the state of Alaska.

Company officials have said repeatedly that they will have to comply with federal and state regulations and plan to do so.

Many Alaskans have begun to take sides, arguing for the benefits of mining to boost the regional economy, or against the mine, because of its threat to the established fisheries economy. Most of those engaged in fisheries have expressed fear that an environmental disaster occurring at the mine site could forever destroy the Bristol Bay watershed.

While Northern Dynasty has an extensive budget for collection of environmental data, the company has declined to release it until the time when permits are applied for.

“There is not a lot of information available to the public,” she said. “I think because of the resources that are potentially at risk here, it is very important that the public be aware of what's going on, because we do have a commercial fishery industry that can be sensitive to changes in the environment.”

Woody noted that Alaska harvests about 92 percent of all the wild sockeye salmon in North America, with 63 percent of that catch coming from Bristol Bay. The average Bristol Bay harvest for the last 20 years was over 25 million reds a year, with 75 percent of that harvest coming from the Kvichak and Nushagak river systems, she said.

The sockeye provide millions of dollars in income for harvesters engaged in commercial fisheries. The region is also renown for its sport angler and subsistence harvests of salmon, rainbow trout and other species, and for sport and subsistence hunters. In 2005 alone, anglers who came to fish in the Bristol Bay watershed spent $61 million. Area residents, from people to grizzly bears, also count on the fish as an important part of their diet.

So what would happen if something, including an earthquake, a volcano, caused a leak of toxic chemicals from the tailings ponds into the Koktuli River and Upper Talarik, small tributaries to two of the eight river systems that together support the Bristol Bay fisheries? Woody asked.

Woody reminded chamber guests that the proposed mine site lies along the notorious “Ring of Fire,” which stretches from New Zealand along the eastern edge of Asia, north across the Aleutian Islands, and south along the coast of North America and South America. The area has major tectonic plates, like giant rafts of the earth's surface, which often slide next to, collide with, and are forced underneath other plates. The result is volcanic and seismic activity.

The massive tailings ponds, which would be constructed of rock on site, “will be earthen dams, and they have to last forever,” Woody said. “And not too many things that humans do last forever.”

Failure of such holding sites for massive amounts of tailings could result in contamination of either the groundwater or the surface water in a very complex series of ponds feeding into the Bristol Bay watershed, she said.

Woody, who has spent several years as a fisheries scientists studying the region, also spoke about the potential impact of high winds, which could carry small quantities of the toxic copper and other heavy metals into surface and ground water.

“I spent the last nine years doing research out there,” she said. “On Lake Clark, we have clocked winds at over 90 miles an hour. It can really howl out there.

“Based on our experiences with the Red Dog Mine (in Northwest Alaska) you can have fugitive dust that can flow away from the watershed, get into the watershed,” she said.

Very low levels of copper can affect the salmon's sense of smell and their immune systems, she said. If the fish can't smell, they can't identify prey, mates and the streams they would normally being returning to, she said.

Woody said other potential damage to the watershed could come from road construction, because of its impact on ground and surface water. The proposed road to access the mine would cross about 140 waterways with salmon or which drain directly into salmon habitat, she said.