Everyone says that Cupid is a boy and HE spreads love around.  Well actually, Cupid is a girl and SHE spreads love around. She doesn’t wear a diaper. And she doesn’t use a long bow. She is not what you would think Cupid would look like.
    Cupid has rosy cheeks, red lips, and her nails are red with pink hearts. On her right cheek there is a small red and pink heart. Her hair is hot pink; it hangs low and loose; when the wind blows, it flows in its direction; it is never tangled and she wears a headband with a red heart on the left side.
    She wears fish net leggings of red under a hot pink dress that comes mid-thigh, a red belt of hearts that slips down on her right hip and, her red leather high heel boots stretch up to her knees.  Instead of white her wings are pink.  To shoot her love arrows to the right person, she has a crossbow equipped with a scope to make every shot count.
    She is tall and means business. “Love isn’t a fun little game; it needs to be watched. That’s where I come in,” is Cupid’s catch phrase.

    Cupid’s job isn’t a bundle of joy. She watches love bloom and fall apart. She watches two hearts love and care about each other, and then it all breaks into an argument. Cupid sees hearts break at a loved one’s death. And love being made fun of.  Also, Cupid watches love bloom from the age of sixteen to ninety- five. The best sight to her is when she hears “to death do you part as long as you may live,?” and “I do,” from the bride and groom. Then seventy years later the couple is still in love; that’s why Cupid still does her job.

          She makes sure that love is in control and that nothing goes wrong. Thanks to her some people find their match. Every heart is full. She makes sure that no matter what you look like you will find love. All it takes is a caring heart, hope, and a chance for love.

    I am opposed to Pebble Partnerships proposal because it will destroy wetlands and salmon. Thirty to 40 million sockeye salmon return to the headwaters of Bristol Bay every year. There are 25 communities in the Bristol Bay area; and they rely heavily on the salmon to survive their subsistence lifestyle, harvesting 2.4 million pounds of salmon a year. It is in this area that the Pebble Partnership proposes a pit mine up to two miles wide and 1,700 feet deep.
     The Bristol Bay tribal governments are against Pebble Mine because they are afraid that the State officials didn’t understand the hazards of Pebble Mine They asked the EPA to block the mine using the Clean Water Act. A mine at the head waters would violate that law. Now the  EPA is investigating the mine.
     The EPA stated in their draft assessment the following:  “Even under the best conditions, 55 to 86 miles of pristine streams would be destroyed, along with up to 2,500 acres of wetlands. “Most worrisome,” the EPA noted,” is the risk of catastrophic failure of one of the mines tailing ponds, where residue from the mill would be held. If a pond were to fail, it would release acidic water and heavy metals into spawning grounds, causing grave, irreversible damage.” 
    They also found that not only would the mine destroy streams and wetlands, but  it would require an 86-mile long haul road and pipelines that would cross spawning grounds. Also they would need to make the nearby port into a deep-water facility; causing major changes.
    When the Bristol Bay Tribes went to the federal government instead of to the State, it made Governor Sean Parnell became enraged. So, his attorney general wrote letters to the EPA, accusing it of overreach and threatening legal action.  The Pebble Partnership jumped on board with the state despite the 230,000 public comments the EPA received about the draft assessment showing that 98% opposed Pebble Partnership’s plan.
    The impact of such a large mine on the small communities and their rural lifestyles would be devastating; the influx of people and infrastructure needed to support the mine would change the very nature of the area forever.
    Should the salmon industry be irreversibly damaged, the ripple effect would spread far and deep.  Commercial fisherman would lose their jobs and need to find a new way of life. This would impact their families causing them to lose money. It would also impact trade, fish stocks in stores, exports, restaurants, the state and national economy, and visitors. The loss of fish could make the country go even further in debt, and Alaska will lose one of its biggest attractions. We will not be able to trade Sockeye salmon to other countries.  People will not be able to harvest or even buy as much fish as they need.  And the people that live off of the Sockeye salmon will have to break tradition or even move to find a new food source that will feed them year round, and that they can get at any time of year and their subsistence lifestyle would be gone, and thousands of years of traditions will be lost.
    The future generations will not be able to witness their history, and tales of life with salmon will feel like a story that never happened.  The 2.4 million pounds of fish a year would turn into 2.4 fish a day.
    Beauty is not measured in copper or gold; it is measured in wildlife, tradition, family, friends, history and love. Pebble can try and mine Bristol Bay, but if enough people stand up and speak out the land and the memories will still live on for generations to come. So join me to bring down Pebble mine, and let the land and its people live like their ancestors have for thousands of years.
“Alaska still has what most of America has lost” ~ Rick Halford, former state legislative leader.