Sky Truth has revised the size of the footprint of the proposed Pebble mine and superimposed the results over the cities of Seattle and Anchorage.
The gallery contains maps and images showing the latest plan for the Pebble mine, based on permit applications filed by Northern Dynasty Minerals with the State of Alaska in the summer of 2006. To convey a sense of the scale of this proposed mine, they've superimposed the mine plan on the city of Seattle.
The mine plan, however, grossly underrepresents the amount of tailings and waste rock that would be generated if public statements made by NDM of the economically recoverable resource - 10.78 billion tons of ore - are accurate. This recovery scenario would likely involve block-cave underground mining east of the main open pit, and would generate a total of 13.5 billion cubic yards of waste. Based on the terrain and locations of other potential disposal sites evaluated by NDM, we've added two massive tailings impoundments to hold the additional 10.2 billion cubic yards of waste that would be generated. To give you a feel for the sheer size of this potential mining complex, we've superimposed this revised plan on Seattle
LINK (Via: SkyTruth on Flickr)