MAURY ISLAND -- Beachside, beneath towering hills blanketed by red-barked madrone trees, Amy Carey faces an uphill slog. She's trying to stop a massive sand mine planned here beside one of the best beaches for hatching the tiny fish that anchor Puget Sound's food chain.

The mine would carve away the backside of the 300-foot-high hills -- providing what proponents call a badly needed source of sand for construction. Barges the length of a football field would dock here to carry sand across the Sound to be made into concrete or used as fill.

Despite support from top state legislators, a two-year effort to pass laws to block or delay the mine is dying this week, the victim of a $170,000 lobbying campaign by the mining company, Glacier Northwest. Meanwhile, residents have only until Monday to comment on a key federal permit to replace an old dock with a new design the mine would need.

Opponents, including environmentalists and nearby residents, ask: Why allow an industrial operation beside one of the few significant stretches of natural shoreline left in central Puget Sound -- especially when the government and others are sketching out a multibillion-dollar rescue plan for the Sound, with healthy beaches a huge focus?

But Glacier Northwest points to approvals by state and federal wildlife officials as evidence that opponents are exaggerating the mine's threat to the Sound.

Click here to read the complete story in the Seattle P-I.