THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

That is the question hanging over the potential approval of the Pebble Mine in Alaska.

In the vast, green, windswept tundra of Southwest Alaska, the planet’s greatest remaining stronghold of wild salmon, an open-pit mine of staggering proportions is being hatched.

Right now it’s just a cluster of buildings in a remote valley, where the silence is broken by the buzz of helicopters bringing workers to collect core samples. But the proposed Pebble Mine could become the largest open-pit mine on the continent, and the Environmental Protection Agency figures it could wipe out nearly 100 miles of streams and thousands of acres of wetlands.

The deposit of copper and gold is a potential $300 billion bonanza in a place where good jobs can be scarce. The mine’s promise of opportunity sits uneasily, though, in a region that produces half the world’s wild red salmon and sustains indigenous Alaska Native cultures that have been tied to the fish for at least 4,000 years.

“When the mine happens, it will destroy a culture,” said Jack Allen, the owner of Nushagak Cab in the Bristol Bay fishing community of Dillingham. “Fishing is not just about money here; it’s life.”

Mine opponents are pressing the EPA to shut down the project before it gets traction. Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals says its subsidiary, the Pebble Partnership, has almost finished drawing up the mine plan.

Pebble Partnership CEO John Shively hopes to start applying soon for the needed federal and state permits, possibly by the end of the year.

“For me, the biggest social and cultural aspects of that region are the salmon and what it means to people for subsistence,” said Shively, a former Alaska state official. “I am not about to bring a plan forward I think would destroy their subsistence opportunities.”

Most people in the Bristol Bay region are not convinced.

“All the mine is going to do is kill our fisheries,” said Nick Christiansen of Dillingham, smoking a cigarette on board the fishing vessel Sherry Sea. “There’s no way to do it safely; that’s been proven around the world.”

The dearth of good paying jobs is a strong lure for the locals to destroy the fish and their way of life. And with the money involved, they probably have no chance of stopping it anyway.