It's a golden opportunity to stop the Pebble Mine! (AND SAVE BRISTOL BAY) from NRDC

This is part of the campaign by the NRDC to stop the environmental disaster that will be the Pebble Mine in Alaska. Check out this call to action and the information about Bristol Bay and please participate by signing the petition by clicking the header or the take action button on the bottom of this page.

Tiffany and Zales have already taken the “No Pebble Pledge.” Now it’s time for Signet, which owns the Kay and Jared jewelry stores, to do the same. Please sign our Petition urging Signet to take the Pledge now. The more companies that take this pledge, the more momentum we build toward stopping the Pebble Mine and saving Bristol Bay!

There is nothing beautiful about the colossal Pebble Mine project being planned for Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed ... nothing romantic about killing salmon, poisoning wildlife or contaminating their habitats with waste from a massive gold and copper mine.

That’s why NRDC is urging leading jewelry retailers to take the No Pebble Pledge: a promise to buy no gold from the disastrous Pebble Mine.

Please sign our Petition to Signet Jewelers. They are the world’s largest specialty jewelry retailer, the company behind the Kay and Jared stores. Urge them to do what Tiffany, Zales and others have already done, and say NO to Pebble Mine gold.

We’re not throwing down the hammer -- yet. We’re first taking a positive and diplomatic tack to get Signet to do the right thing. So no matter how you feel about the jewelry industry, please join this effort to build the kind of market-based opposition we need to stop the Pebble Mine.

Because it MUST be stopped.

The very name “Pebble” Mine is bitterly ironic, because this mine would be anything but small: it would be a massive, 2,000-foot-deep, two-mile-long gold and copper mine, expected to churn up 10 BILLION tons of mining waste, laced with toxic chemicals.

You and other BioGems Defenders have stood behind Alaskan Natives and local fishermen by taking a powerful stand against Pebble Mine. Thanks to you we’ve been able to deliver more than 100,000 Letters of Protest to Britain-based Anglo American, and another 98,000 to Mitsubishi: two of the principal players in the international mega-consortium behind Pebble Mine.

But we also need to cut off demand for Pebble Mine gold before the mine is even built!

Jewelry retailers are critical to the mine because jewelry demand represents 80% of global gold production. More than 30 jewelry retailers, including Tiffany, Zales and Helzberg Diamonds have already taken the No Pebble Pledge. But so far, Signet hasn’t.

There is reason to be optimistic. Signet Group was one of the first jewelers to sign the “Golden Rules,” which promises responsible gold sourcing. Let’s encourage them to back up this statement now -- and take their environmental responsibility even more seriously.

We believe that Signet will join others in their industry and voluntarily take the No Pebble Pledge, once they see just how strong the opposition to Pebble Mine is. It’s up to us to show them!

Help take advantage of this “golden opportunity” to STOP Pebble Mine.

Please urge Signet to take the No Pebble Pledge now. It’s a simple, fast, effective step you can take to cut off the demand for Pebble Mine gold -- and show Anglo American and Mitsubishi that digging their dirty mine is not only a bad environmental decision, but a bad business decision, too.

Thank you for taking action today!

Sincerely,

Peter Lehner
Executive Director
Natural Resources Defense Council

Bristol Bay

Click the arrows at right for a short slideshow

Hard-Rock Mining Threatens Alaskan Wilderness

New gold rush jeopardizes world-class salmon runs and the bears, whales and other wildlife that depend on them.

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Steller sea lion on Round Island in Bristol Bay

All photos this page © Alaska Stock.com. Top left, Mulchatna River below Turquoise Lake in Lake Clark National Park, by Chlaus Lotscher; top right, beluga whale by Steven Kazl; above by Lon Lauber.

The cool, shallow waters of Bristol Bay are surrounded by a verdant cushion of tundra, crisscrossed by swift rivers and dotted with lakes large and small. Grizzlies, wolves, seals and whales roam this nearly untouched ecosystem, all drawn by the same lure: tens of millions of thrashing salmon, charging upstream to spawn. Huge salmon runs are the linchpin of this glorious wilderness, supporting valuable commercial fisheries, indigenous people and a vast array of wildlife. Yet the whole system could come crashing down if giant mining interests get their way.
Foreign mining companies, including Mitsubishi, Rio Tinto and Anglo American, are eyeing low-grade gold and copper deposits on pristine land in the Bristol Bay watershed in an area known as Pebble. A Bush-era management plan could open up more than 1 million acres of public land in the region to mining. The only way to extract this ore is through destructive and pollution-producing hard-rock mining.
A study of mines similar to the proposed Pebble mine showed that 85 percent of them polluted nearby waters. At Pebble, a proposed open-pit mine would be 2 miles wide (enough to line up nine of the world's longest cruise ships end-to-end) and 2,000 feet deep (enough to engulf the Empire State Building). As proposed, the mine would generate more than 9 billion tons of waste held behind a series of massive earthen dams -- all of them taller than China's Three Gorges Dam and located just 20 miles from an active fault line.
A single accident here would be disastrous. But even the construction and operation of the mine could disrupt salmon migration and jeopardize the larger ecosystem. It’s a risk most local Alaskans are not willing to take -- the true gold of this region, they say, is its fish and wildlife.