Vote in Alaska Puts Question: Gold or Fish?

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DILLINGHAM, Alaska — Just up the fish-rich rivers that surround this tiny bush town on Bristol Bay is a discovery of copper and gold so vast and valuable that no one seems able to measure it all. Then again, no one really knows the value of the rivers, either. They are the priceless headwaters of one of the world’s last great runs of Pacific salmon.

DILLINGHAM, Alaska — Just up the fish-rich rivers that surround this tiny bush town on Bristol Bay is a discovery of copper and gold so vast and valuable that no one seems able to measure it all. Then again, no one really knows the value of the rivers, either. They are the priceless headwaters of one of the world’s last great runs of Pacific salmon.

“Perhaps it was God who put these two great resources right next to each other,” said John T. Shively, the chief executive of a foreign consortium that wants to mine the copper and gold deposit. “Just to see what people would do with them.”

Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/us/23alaska.html