The proposal to dig a huge gold mine in a vital salmon spawning ground has pitted Republicans against Republicans. But the EPA’s attempt to ban it may bring them back together.

The story the Alaska Dispatch News reprinted, "Internal memos spur accusations of bias as EPA moves to block Pebble Mine," (Feb. 16) from the Washington Post’s recent story on the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region doesn’t just omit some key facts -- it fails to report the most relevant facts in telling the whole story.

Just north of Iliamna Lake in southwestern Alaska is an empty expanse of marsh and shrub that conceals one of the world’s great buried fortunes: A mile-thick layer of virgin ore said to contain at least 6.7 million pounds — or $120 billion worth — of gold.

Nondalton’s tribal council is protesting the move of its village corporation, Kijik Corp., to form a joint venture with Anchorage-based Alaska Earth Sciences to explore a copper/gold deposit near the village and adjacent to the Pebble project.