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Forty-five miles west of Anchorage lie acres of gorgeous wildlife and clean air and water, all proposed to be transformed into a surface strip coal mine in the Beluga Coal Field. Among other buildings and infrastructure, the project will create a 10,000-foot loading station stretching into Cook Inlet, a mine access road, an air strip facility, and a coal export terminal including a 10,000-foot trestle to load coal. The mine is expected to last 25 years or more and extract one billion metric tons of coal from 20,571 acres of leased land.
The Chuitna Coal project is estimated to destroy 11 miles of active salmon streams, dump billions of gallons of mine waste into our fisheries, increase traffic of ships in the Cook Inlet beluga whales' habitat, contribute considerably to greenhouse gas emissions, and impact the commercial and sport fishing industries as mercury levels in salmon increase and the demand for Alaska fish decreases.
Is a cheap and dirty energy source really worth this list of negative impacts?
The Chuitna coal mine would lower costs of coal, giving gas-fired power plants an easy opportunity to convert to coal power. This in turn will significantly increase negative environmental impacts from the mercury, nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and other metals and emissions. To refrain from intensifying climate change problems; to keep our air and water clean and animals safe; to support the economy; we have the chance to oppose this mine. Alaska has great potential in renewable energies such as tidal, wind, geothermal and wave energy.
Let's use what's at our fingertips and healthy for the environment.
Elyse Carter
Homer High School student
We encourage you to add your comments. To prevent spam, comments with links are manually approved during the normal business day. Please be respectful of others with your comments, bear in mind anyone in the community may be reading your comments.
