Alaska is a resource development state. The balancing act between development and conservation is played out over and over again as far away as the North Slope to right here in the Kenai Peninsula Borough.

Our home in Cook Inlet gives us front-row seats to two major balancing acts -- Pebble and Chuitna mines.

Due to its scale and the controversy surrounding it, Pebble has garnered the lion’s share of attention, but the Chuitna project is no less deserving of scrutiny.

The project as envisioned involves mining 5,000 acres of a 20,000-acre lease area in the Beluga coal fields across Cook Inlet, which happens to include wetlands, salmon streams, wildlife habitat and hunting grounds.

PacRim Coal Corp. and DRven Corp., the firm managing the mine’s development for PacRim, say they will do everything necessary to protect the environment as they mine an estimated 300 million tons of coal over 25 years.

At the mine site itself, which is about 12 miles northwest of Tyonek, 500 to 700 acres at a time will be cleared and mined up to 350 feet deep, then the vegetation will be replaced.

Since the area includes wetlands, managing water likely will be the biggest challenge developers face. DRven proposes to replace soil and vegetation in layers so the existing aquifer will remain at the same level it’s at now before the coal seam is mined.

Naturally occurring rainwater runoff and snowmelt will be routed to sediment ponds, where it will be treated, and 7 million gallons a day will be discharged into area streams. Those streams are tributaries of the Chuitna River, one of Southcentral’s most important salmon producers, which makes it a vital resource for subsistence and commercial fishermen.

The proposed system for moving the coal sounds like something out of a science-fiction novel.

Developers propose a 12-mile, 72-inch-wide transport conveyor belt system between the mine and Ladd Landing on the Cook Inlet shoreline. The belt would flip after delivery so the return trip would be made dirty-side-up to keep coal dust and grime from dumping on the ground along the way.

At Ladd Landing, a trestle dock will extend 10,000 feet into the inlet, drawing as many as 400 cargo ships a year up Cook Inlet.

DRven says it will use a coal dust suppression system, and core samples already taken purportedly show the coal deposit doesn’t include toxic chemicals that could foul the watershed.

As Robert Stiles, president of DRven, told the Kenai-Soldotna Fish and Game Advisory Committee last week, “There will be no decrease in the quality for the Chuitna River or its tributaries.”

That’s a tall order to fill, especially since anything less than that is unacceptable.

The company plans to industrially mine 5,000 acres of sensitive wetlands over 25 years then recreate a watershed system that it took Mother Nature a billion or more years to make.

The trestle dock at Ladd Landing will stick out 10,000 feet into beluga whale and salmon waters. Cook Inlet shipping traffic will increase by hundreds of vessels in summer and winter, when just last year the grounding of an oil tanker at the Tesoro dock in Nikiski proved we don’t have the necessary infrastructure in place to protect against, much less adequately respond to, ship groundings, sinkings or spills.

The conveyor belt will travel 12 miles through wetlands and migratory animal habitat in summer and winter. Can it stand up to the ravages of ice, wind, rain, snow and critters that it will be subjected to?

Then there’s the larger concerns surrounding coal use in general, including the greenhouse gasses coal emits when burned.

The project promises jobs and other economic benefits for the Kenai Peninsula. As oil and gas reserves in the inlet dwindle, Chuitna Mine gets bonus points for falling into that all-important category of diversifying the economy. And just because a project is difficult or seems outlandish doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be built for those reasons alone. If Alaska subscribed to that philosophy, we wouldn’t have an oil pipeline.

So here, as with Pebble Mine, the residents of the Kenai Peninsula Borough and others in the proposed mine neighborhood are faced with the age-old Alaska question: Do the economic benefits outweigh the risks to the environment?

That’s in part what the governmental permitting process is designed to sort out. A project of this magnitude doesn’t happen overnight. It can take years of testing, study and scrutiny by environmental experts before a green light is granted.

But politics also plays a hand in the permitting process, which means the public -- as the natural balance to politicians -- must be involved, as well.

The mine proposal hasn’t been opened for public comment yet, but that doesn’t mean the public must wait until it is to study the issues, formulate their questions and voice their concerns.

Visit the Peninsula Clarion’s Web site to search our archives for stories on Chuitna Mine. Also visit the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chuitna project Web site, www.chuitnaseis.com.

Balance is tricky to achieve. It can’t be done without information and involvement.