Bristol Bay protections rolled back
Just weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency released comments critical of Pebble’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the agency today withdrew the 2014 Proposed Determination.
If finalized, the Proposed Determination would have safeguarded the Bristol Bay region – the world’s greatest wild salmon ecosystem – from the proposed Pebble mine and other large-scale industrial development by placing limits on the amount of mine waste that can be disposed of in Bristol Bay’s rivers and wetlands.
“Sixty million fish can’t be wrong,” Trout Unlimited CEO Chris Wood said. “That’s how many sockeye returned to Bristol Bay last year. That’s the resource that is being put at risk by this unjustified and fundamentally boneheaded decision. We have spent $18 billion on unsuccessful efforts to try and recover salmon in the Columbia and Snake Rivers, meanwhile Alaska’s resource is outstanding and all we have to do to keep it intact is have the good sense to leave it alone. We will look at all options—including litigation—to protect Bristol Bay from large-scale industrial mining.”