The west side of Cook Inlet near the communities of Beluga and Tyonek is laced with salmon streams. Buried in this wilderness lies a billion tons of the past. Let's leave it there.

Coal may have been yesterday's avenue to industrial riches, but here in Cook Inlet, it's tomorrow's path to polluted commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries, damaged wildlife habitat, and a loss of sustainable jobs. The Chuitna coal strip mine proposed by PacRim Coal LP, a Delaware-based corporation, would lead us down that path.

Alaskans love their state and recognize an obligation to protect the land, the wildlife, and clean water and air. PacRim and its Texas investors recognize only the profit they can make from shipping Alaska coal to Asia. The two aims are mutually exclusive.

To unearth the coal, PacRim would mine through 11 miles of salmon-spawning streams feeding the Chuitna River, an important contributor to Cook Inlet fisheries. The company's permit applications under the Clean Water Act state an average 7 million gallons of mine wastes and runoff each day would be dumped into Cook Inlet fisheries. When fully developed, the mine would destroy 30 square miles of unique fish and wildlife habitat.

The project includes a long conveyor to carry coal from the mine to the shore at Ladd Landing, property owned by the Kenai Peninsula Borough on which PacRim holds a lease option. There, plans call for a major storage site and associated facilities, as well as a gravel island and 2-mile long trestle jutting into Cook Inlet that would deliver coal to Asia-bound ships -- perhaps as many as 120 per year, or an average of one ship every three days for a quarter-century or more.

The trestle and island would disrupt fish migration patterns in Cook Inlet. The added ship traffic -- much of it arriving and departing in icy, winter conditions -- would increase the chance for accident.

Valuable fish resources critical to Cook Inlet's sustainable economy of are at risk. State figures show sports anglers spent more than $730 million pursuing their passion in 2007, on gear, gas, food, lodging and other goods. That money kept businesses thriving, employed more than 8,000 full- and part-time workers, and generated over $100 million in local, state and federal taxes. Cook Inlet commercial fishermen caught more than 3.8 million salmon valued at nearly $20.5 million during the 2008 fishing season, keeping skippers and crews working, along with thousands of others in the seafood processing industry and related businesses.

The mine threatens all that, and Alaskans aren't likely to get much in return. Chuitna coal appears destined for Asia. Alaska has little use for it. Usibelli supplies enough for Alaska's needs and exports its excess. Furthermore, state tax laws give coal mining a nearly free ride compared to the oil, gas and fishing industries.

No state or federal agency, no local government, not even PacRim has answered a most basic question: what is the dollar value of the renewable fish and game resources that would be lost? There's never been a thorough, independent assessment of the mine's potential impacts. Shouldn't Alaskans be privy to that information before giving away a birthright to Asian coal consumption?

Although Kenai Peninsula Borough lawmakers have no mine-permitting authority, they are debating renewing the 1987 PacRim's lease-option. Ladd Landing is a key element in PacRim's plans, which gives the borough some influence.

I've fished and hunted extensively in the area for nearly 20 years. The region is one of the most productive and unique locations I have ever explored. And this is after owning an ecotourism guiding business for the last 10 years that visited the most remote wilderness in Alaska. There is too much at stake here -- clean water, clean air, abundant wildlife, fish salmon resources, and all the local jobs that depend on them -- to grant PacRim a 25-75 year lease for a strip mine that will destroy our fish and game resources, and harm the families and communities who rely on them.

Wade Willis is an Anchorage Fish and Game Advisory Committee member, a former biologist for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, a hunter, subsistence fisherman and the owner of an ecotourism business.