Proposed gold mine in Alaska faces long, difficult journey

Mining in Alaska isn't as easy as it used to be. Old mines of Alaska lore like the fabled Kennecott copper mine near McCarthy did not face a maze of federal and state regulation. There was no Environmental Protection Agency back in the early 1900s, when Kennecott Minerals Co. mined and milled some 4 million tons of copper ore worth more than $4.5 billion in 2011 dollars.