Bristol Bay is…
Home to one of the most important wild salmon fisheries on Earth with annual sockeye salmon returns exceeding 60 million fish. This bounty feeds a wide variety of wildlife and human communities, from grizzly bears to Alaska Native families to a globally important commercial fishery.
The bay’s pristine waters have sustained the region’s indigenous peoples for thousands of years, and each year tens of thousands of anglers and visitors from around the world are drawn to the region for its extraordinary beauty and fishery.
Pebble Mine is…
on the other side of the scale. The mine is proposed for the headwaters of the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers, just north of Iliamna Lake, the largest lake in Alaska and one of the most important sockeye salmon nurseries in the world. As proposed, Pebble would be one of the world’s largest open pit copper-gold-molybdenum mines, with an earthen dam 60-stories tall that would ultimately hold up to 10 billion tons of toxic tailings and contaminated water.
The Mine’s Legacy…
is an eternal poisonous legacy. While the mine’s promised economic benefits will, at best, be short-lived, one operational mistake, design flaw, earthquake, or other act of god, and billions of tons of toxic waste will poison the waters, destroy the wildlife, decimate the fishery, and devastate a way of life that has sustained the people of this region for generations.
Just one example of the breadth and depth of support working to prevent Pebble Mine.
We can celebrate the First Chapter…
thanks to tremendous support from the Flyfishing Industry, conservation groups, and the public. The groundswell of opposition made its collective voice heard to the Congress and the Administration. It was a pitched battle that required all the collective resources of the groups on the front lines. In August 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found the mine’s application deficient and stated it could not be permitted without a better plan to compensate for the loss and destruction of thousands of acres of wetlands and 184 miles of salmon streams. In November 2020 the Corps denied a key permit for the mine. Pebble Limited Partnership’s permit for a mine. The decision found that such a permit would not comply with Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and “would be contrary to the public interest.” The Corps action is good news…
But… it does not prevent the company from coming back with a new proposal nor prevent future mining threats.
What’s at Stake
$1.5 billion annual commercial fishery
$90 million in Alaska state taxes and licensing fees
14,000 fishing jobs
7,000 sport fishing and hunting jobs
Thousands of full and part-time tourism and recreation jobs
HELP WRITE THE FINAL CHAPTER
Time to finish the job and protect Bristol Bay once and for all. The coalition of organizations working to protect Bristol Bay has issued a call for permanent protection:
STEP 1: EPA Acts to Veto Pebble Mine
The Environmental Protection Agency uses its authority under the Clean Water Act (404c) to veto the Pebble Mine. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency have concluded that Pebble Mine will damage Bristol Bay forever – yet the project continues. The EPA must start its veto process immediately.
STEP 2: Congress Establishes the Bristol Bay National Fisheries Area
Congress enacts legislation to establish a National Fisheries Area providing federal protection for the watersheds of Bristol Bay, Alaska. It would permanently ban any toxic mine waste from the proposed Pebble Mine and any other large scale projects that would harm Bristol Bay rivers, lakes and wetlands.
Stand and Be Heard
For more information contact:
Top photo: Sockeye Salmon Release, courtesy of Bryan Gregson.