Living things are more than the sum of their minerals

I tell you, that’s a beautiful fish. It’s a sockeye salmon, native to Washington state, British Columbia, and Alaska, a gorgeous anadromous beast that has to spawn in lakes of the Pacific Northwest. Huge numbers of them live in Bristol Bay off the Alaska coast, which is pretty much the center of their population range.

Now mining interests want to gouge out what would be the largest open pit mine in North America in their breeding grounds. They want to punch this monstrosity out in the middle of a wilderness, requiring roads and other infrastructure elements to be built first, and then they’ll sluice the poisonous wastewater and toxic mining tailings out into the Kvichak and Nushagak Rivers, and then out into Bristol Bay. All to recover gold and copper, at the cost of destroying half the sockeye population.

What price are we willing to pay for the privilege of poisoning the salmon?