This is so simple. Alaskans could have saved billions of dollars if we had simply had a group named the "Truth About Transporting Oil." We would have known exactly who to believe and we wouldn't have ended up with the Exxon Valdez spill or the BP pipeline blowout.

And if, 25 years ago, my home state of Montana had been lucky enough to have a group called the "Truth About Giant Open Pit Mines," we wouldn't have ended up with permament pollution problems from every one of those new mines.

Truth About Pebble is now making the same promises, nearly verbatim, that pro-mining groups made in Montana and elsewhere, and Truth About Pebble is using the same basic play book that has resulted in tragedy elsewhere: Tell the citizens to simply relax and trust the permitting process. When it is granted, dig a massive pit, extract the minerals and store the waste in a toxic lagoon.

Truth About Pebble promises us that using the same basic approach that has failed elsewhere will somehow turn out just fine over at Iliamna. They must be right. They've already told us it's The Truth.

Ray Fowler