Anglo American’s Bristol Bay Controversy: Wildlife vs. Mineral Riches

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Cynthia Carroll, dubbed Cyanide Cynthia by critics, sees Pebble as a chance to prove that Anglo can be "sensitive to the environment" and help the community. | photograph by Chris Floyd

Raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Carroll stumbled into geology at Skidmore College to, as she puts it, "get science over with." Fascinated with studying things that had been hidden in the earth for billions of years and eager to work outdoors, she went on to get a master's degree in geology from the University of Kansas, then an MBA from Harvard. As an oil-exploration geologist for Amoco (now part of BP ), she climbed mountains and rode in helicopters around the western United States and Alaska. Later, at the Canadian aluminum company Alcan (now a division of Rio Tinto ), she worked her way up to the top of its primary metals business, while having four children in six years. "The nurse was not happy," she recalls, when she fielded phone calls onan important deal while she was in labor with her first child.

The balancing act became too much even for her after her third child was born, and her husband, David, an accountant, quit his job to stay at home with the kids. That allowed Carroll to travel to virtually all corners of the earth, where she often faced people who didn't want Alcan setting up shop in their backyards. She cultivated a touchy-feely strategy for dealing with community resistance. In Candonga, Brazil, for instance, a plan to build a hydropower plant faced fierce opposition because it required the relocation of 120 indigenous families. Carroll dispatched a trusted colleague to live in what one former Alcan exec calls a "zero-star-type hotel" near Candonga for six months, talking to people and giving them a say in where their new village would be located and what it would look like. Eventually, all 120 families moved willingly.

Carroll hopes similar tactics will work in Alaska. She calls it a strategy of "engagement," which is a fancy way of saying that the Pebble Partnership -- the company formed by Anglo and its 50-50 joint venture partner, the small Canadian company Northern Dynasty -- is talking to everyone who has an opinion about the mine. The partnership hired the Keystone Center, a nonprofit outfit in Colorado, to mediate discussions with stakeholders ranging from native Alaskan villagers and sport fishermen to government officials and environmentalists. These meetings are part of the partnership's $14 million public affairs budget for this year. "It's communicating and being open and transparent, and giving people a venue to provide feedback and have an exchange," Carroll says. And to supplement the talk, there's money: grants of $1 million a year for five years for fishing and other economic development projects.

During her Alaska trip last fall, she did some diplomacy herself. She promised business leaders that Anglo would not build Pebble "if the mine cannot be planned in a way that provides proper protections" for the salmon and other wildlife. Carroll later told me she would proceed only if "a majority of the community" is in support of the mine. And "the community," she makes very clear, means local residents and Bristol Bay commercial fisherman, not wealthy outsiders who fly in to fish. "I will not go where people don't want us. I just won't," she says. "We've got enough on our plate without having communities against us."

"I will not go where people don't want us," Carroll says. "I just won't. We've got enough on our plate without having communities against us."

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An unspoiled expanse of icy tundra for much of the year, Bristol Bay is glorious in summer, when its endless lakes and rivers turn crystal blue. Deposits of gold, copper, and molybdenum were first discovered here in 1988, and active exploration has been going on since 2002. To say the location is challenging for mining is an understatement. The deposits sit at the headwaters of two of the rivers that make up the Bristol Bay salmon fishery. Salmon are very sensitive to the unintended but not uncommon consequences of mining, notably seepage into rivers of heavy metals such as lead and mercury and toxic chemicals such as cyanide. Pebble's mine waste would also contain naturally occurring sulfide, which becomes acidic when exposed to oxygen and water -- a big problem for aquatic life. Because the area is so wet, containing or reversing a spill would be very difficult. Finally, there are earthquakes. Southwest Alaska is in an active seismic zone; the Lake Clark fault line runs less than 20 miles from the Pebble site.