The bristol bay watershed is the annual spawning ground for some 60 million salmon. Corey Arnold
By Brendan Jones
Since 2004, Alaska Natives, fishing councils and locals in the town of Dillingham have formed a rare alignment against a proposed gold mine near Bristol Bay and the headwaters of two of the last great salmon rivers on Earth.
<p style="">If Pebble Mine were to proceed, Northern Dynasty Minerals, a Canadian company, would detonate thousands of tons of explosives in this mossy tundra to create a nearly 4,000-acre open-pit gold and copper mine along the braided waterways and lagoons feeding Bristol Bay. A tailings pond would contain enough slurry laced with sulfuric acid to cover Iceland. The sole barrier protecting the nearly 60 million salmon spawning annually in the bay from the toxic water would be an earthen dam. If the dam failed—the area is located in one of the most active earthquake zones in North America—marine mammals, fish and dozens of species of birds, along with a booming fisheries economy worth upwards of half a billion dollars, could be devastated. </p><p>That was the conclusion of a 2014 peer-reviewed study carried out by the EPA, which found that Pebble would do "irreversible" damage to the watershed and that there would be "complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources." To underline its findings, the EPA invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act, with the aim of permanently imposing restrictions on the site. </p><p>After the study's release, Northern Dynasty stock prices plummeted. Investors, including three of the world's largest mining companies, pulled out. To all involved, it appeared that the mother lode of gold and copper would remain beneath the bogs and mossy hummocks of the bay. </p><p>Then Donald Trump was elected president. </p><p>On May 1, 2017, Tom Collier, CEO of the mining operation Pebble Limited Partnership, and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt sat down together for breakfast. Less than an hour later they had a deal. An email was sent alerting EPA officials that the agency had settled an ongoing lawsuit with Pebble, clearing the way for the mine to move forward. </p><p style="">In the three-month comment period that ensued, more than 25,000 Alaskans filed complaints protesting Pebble Mine. "We were hopeful during the Obama administration that the federal government would listen to the voice of the people and the hard science of their agencies," said Alannah Hurley, the executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of tribal governments. For thousands of years, the tribes have relied on the annual harvest of sockeye for sustenance. "With the election of Trump, it has been very frustrating." </p><p style="">The proposed mine has united conservationists, commercial and sport fishers, and Alaska Native nations—groups more accustomed to fighting with one another over salmon resources. They have joined together for letter-writing campaigns, youth-empowerment events, and community organizing in an effort to push back against the mine. "We realized early on that if this mine happens, there won't be any allocations left to fight over," Hurley said. </p><p style="">Tim Bristol, director of Salmon State, which works to protect salmon habitat around Alaska, says that the alignment of disparate interests is nearly unprecedented. "It took something as big and awful as Pebble to bring us all under one roof." </p><p>Pebble Limited Partnership's marketing material says that its project will create 1,000 jobs and that it is possible to build the mine "in harmony with the environment" and with "minimal impact" on Bristol Bay, economic or otherwise. In response, conservation groups point to the 14,000 jobs created by tourism and the fisheries, contributing $1.5 billion dollars to the economy each year—jobs that the mine would endanger by eradicating 90 miles of salmon streams and possibly leaching toxins from the tailings pond.</p><p style="">The possibility of a catastrophic breach is real. In August 2014, despite repeated reassurances from the Canadian company Imperial Metals that such a thing could never happen, the tailings pond of Mount Polley, a smaller copper and gold mine in British Columbia, failed. An estimated 1.3 billion gallons of toxic water flooded Quesnel Lake, contaminating the Xat'sull First Nation salmon harvest—a 1,000-year-old tradition—along with local drinking water. </p><p style="">"That woke up a lot of folks," said Verner Wilson, who grew up fishing in Dillingham. "Even conservatives who said Pebble Mine wouldn't be so bad." </p><p style="">Karl Jordan, a third-generation salmon fisherman who cut his teeth working in Bristol Bay, said Pebble is a nonstarter. "If we can't stop a mine here in Bristol, one of the last remaining salmon fisheries, we can't stop one anywhere." Even Alaska's late Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, a staunch supporter of mines, once called Pebble "the wrong mine in the wrong place." </p><p style="">In December, Northern Dynasty announced a partnership with the Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals, a move that ensures financial support for the mine through the expensive permitting phase. A few days later, Northern Dynasty filed for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which initiated a full review of the project in anticipation of publishing an environmental impact statement. Then, in a head-spinning move, the EPA announced in January that it would not suspend the environmental protections for Bristol Bay, making the permitting process more uncertain. Northern Dynasty insists its plans are still on track. The EPA continues to solicit public comment. </p><p style="">"We can talk all day about why this doesn't make sense economically," Hurley said. "And yes, I agree. But for us, this is a spiritual fight. A fight for our home and for everything that makes us who we are, that made our ancestors who they were. For us, this is a human rights issue. For our people, that's what this is all about."</p><p style=""> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-2-march-april/grapple/pebble-mine-threatens-alaska-salmon-bristol-bay" target="_blank">SIERRA Magazine</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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In a stunning reversal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it is suspending its effort to reverse an Obama-era plan to restrict mining in Bristol Bay, Alaska based on a controversial mine project's risks to the region's important salmon fisheries and natural resources.
The unexpected move from President Trump's pro-business administration was a blow to Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals. The mine developer is proposing to extract one of the world's largest copper and gold deposits from the pristine watershed. Shares fell as much as 26 percent on Monday following the EPA's surprise decision.
<p>
The Obama EPA in 2014 <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/371001-trump-epa-revives-obama-proposal-to-block-alaska-mine" target="_blank">proposed to block</a> the project under the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/clean-water-act">Clean Water Act</a> but the plan was never finalized after a federal court put a hold on the process.
</p><p style="">
Last year, the EPA <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-lawsuit-pebble-mine-2404702705.html">started a process</a> to reverse the decision, and Pebble submitted its first permit application to build the mine last month. But the EPA received more than one million comments from interested stakeholders, most that were fiercely opposed to withdrawing the earlier proposed protections. More than 65 percent of Alaskans, 80 percent of Bristol Bay residents and Native communities, and 85 percent of commercial fishermen oppose the mine.
</p><p style="">
Joel Reynolds, the western director and senior attorney the <a href="http://nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> noted, "The Bristol Bay fishery is the economic and cultural heart and soul of the region, producing last summer alone some 60 million wild salmon. Every year it generates an estimated $1.5 billion in revenue, supporting some 14,000 jobs in a region that depends on that economic engine for its very survival. According to EPA's own comprehensive assessment of risk, the Pebble Mine's impact on the region could be 'catastrophic.'"
</p><p style="">
<span></span>EPA administrator <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruitt" target="_blank">Scott Pruitt</a> said Friday, "We have restored process, reviewed comments, and heard from a variety of stakeholders on whether to withdraw the proposed restrictions in the Bristol Bay watershed."
</p><p style="">
"Based on that review, it is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there. Until we know the full extent of that risk, those natural resources and world-class fisheries deserve the utmost protection."
</p><p style="">
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker thanked the EPA and the Trump administration for "listening to my input, as well as the input of thousands of Alaskans who oppose rescinding the EPA's Bristol Bay assessment."
</p><p>
Mine opponents cheered the decision. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/28/581403241/in-reversal-epa-suspends-alaska-mining-project-to-preserve-watershed-protections" target="_blank">NPR</a> reported:
</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">
"Alannah Hurley with <a href="http://utbb.org/" target="_blank">United Tribes of Bristol Bay</a>, a group opposing the mine, has said members of the tribes she represents are willing to lie down in front of bulldozers to protect the waters. She called the EPA's move huge. 'These proposed protections, the fact that the Trump administration is choosing to keep them on the shelf, is a recognition ... that the Pebble Mine is too toxic, even for the Trump administration,' she said.
</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">
"Hurley spoke by phone from the commercial fishing hub of Dillingham, the seat of resistance to Pebble Mine, where she said activists were jubilant about the EPA's announcement. 'The people of Bristol Bay are really celebrating the fact that the protections that we have fought so long and hard for are not being withdrawn by the EPA and instead could potentially later be finalized,' Hurley said."
</p><p>
But the EPA indicated the project could one day be approved, as the decision "neither deters nor derails the application process of Pebble Limited Partnership's proposed project. The project proponents continue to enjoy the protection of due process and the right to proceed. However, their permit application must clear a high bar, because EPA believes the risk to Bristol Bay may be unacceptable."
</p><p>
"We expect the permitting process for Pebble to advance expeditiously over the next few years, and that a draft and final (Environmental Impact Statement) will be completed upon which final permitting decisions for the Pebble Project will be made," Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen told <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-alaska-pebblemine/in-reversal-u-s-epa-maintains-restriction-on-alaska-mine-project-idUKKBN1FF2ZO" target="_blank">Reuters</a>.
</p><p>
<span></span>The EPA plans to solicit additional public comment on the impact of the mining application.
</p><p>
Hurley added to NPR, "Ideally we would like these [protections] finalized, and the battle to protect Bristol Bay from the Pebble Mine and mines like Pebble is far from over. But the fact that these protections remain in place and can be used within the process is a very positive step in the effort to protect the Bristol Bay watershed for generations to come."
</p>
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'The Wrong Mine in the Wrong Place': Former Republican EPA Administrators Blast Alaska Mining Project
13 December 2017
Popular
By Taryn Kiekow Heimer
An U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator under every Republican presidential administration since the EPA was created, except the Ford administration, whose administrator is deceased, have joined forces to make a statement in opposition to the Pebble Mine proposed in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Their statement appeared Tuesday as a full-page ad in the Washington Post.
<p style="">The message is clear: "The Pebble Mine is the wrong mine in absolutely the wrong place."</p>
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg3MDE0MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzA1NTg1NX0.kazjiJJ35b_nAiVXVPImB1fQacCdX5VzKoHMjyw0ncE/img.jpg?width=980" id="f6c70" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d326bad387ee9fc724cb217b01691e53" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
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<p style="">The statement also decries EPA Administrator <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruitt">Scott Pruitt's</a> backroom deal with the Pebble Partnership that simultaneously managed to breathe new life into the dying project and<em> </em>abandon years' worth of agency science and process.</p><p style="">The short but hard-hitting bipartisan statement is signed by former EPA Administrators William D. Ruckelshaus (Presidents Nixon and Reagan), William K. Reilly (President George H.W. Bush), and Christine Todd Whitman (President George W. Bush). The statement is also joined by former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt (President William J. Clinton), whose former Chief of Staff Tom Collier is currently heading the Pebble Partnership.</p><p style="">The statement is featured on the back page of the Washington Post and is supported by Bristol Bay tribes, villages, commercial fishermen, sportsmen and conservationists.</p><p style="">United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Nunamta Aulukestai, Sustaining Bristol Bay Fisheries, Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay, Trout Unlimited, Salmon State, Trustees for Alaska, and the Natural Resources Defense Council all signed onto the ad.</p><p style=""><a href="https://act.nrdc.org/letter/stop-pebble-mine-170918" target="_blank">Click here</a> to show your solidarity with this statement and support for Bristol Bay. It's long-past time to <a href="https://act.nrdc.org/letter/stop-pebble-mine-170918" target="_blank">stop the Pebble Mine</a>! </p>
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