Saving Seafood

Alaska salmon: Bristol Bay opens with Pebble Mine decision pending

June 30, 2020 — The biggest red salmon run in the world is building at Bristol Bay.

Up to 50 million fish could surge into its eight river systems in coming weeks, on par with past seasons. When it’s all done, the fishery will provide nearly half the global supply of wild sockeye salmon.

But this summer is different.

Beyond the restrictions and fears and economic chaos caused by covid-19, fishermen are waiting to learn if the development of a massive gold and copper mine that’s been hanging over their heads for two decades will get a greenlight from the federal government. The news is expected to come at the height of the summer season.

In mid-July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to unveil its federal record of decision on the permit application by Northern Dynasty of Vancouver, Canada, to build the Pebble Mine at the sprawling mosaic of headwaters that provide the spawning and rearing grounds for the region’s salmon.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Pebble offers to pay annual dividend to residents of Bristol Bay, hotbed of opposition to Pebble’s mine

June 19, 2020 — The proposed Pebble Mine has always faced fierce opposition in Bristol Bay. Now, Pebble is offering to pay every adult resident of the area an annual dividend.

Pebble Chief Executive Tom Collier says he wants to share the benefits of the mine with the region, even before the mine delivers its first load of ore. Pebble says it will pay at least $3 million a year in dividends, divided among those who register to receive it.

“(If) 3,000 sign up, it’ll be $1,000 a year,” Collier said. “And as the project becomes profitable, it will be much more than that.”

Collier says he’s making good on a commitment he made to the region.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Bristol Bay Native Corporation not impressed with Pebble’s latest offer

June 18, 2020 — On Tuesday, Pebble Limited Partnership introduced the Pebble Performance Dividend. The plan would distribute 3% of the net profits from the proposed Pebble Mine to registered Bristol Bay residents.

But the idea was quickly rejected by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation.

In a statement BBNC President and CEO Jason Metrokin called it “the latest attempt by PLP to try to win support from the people of Bristol Bay for the proposed Pebble mine.”

Pebble Mine said the project would take a few years to be profitable, so it would distribute a miniumum of $3 million a year or about $1,000 if there are 3,000 “registered participants.”

Read the full story at KTVA

Pebble mine developer launches plan to share profits with local residents

June 17, 2020 — The developer of the controversial proposed Pebble mine in Southwest Alaska launched a profit-sharing plan for residents from the Bristol Bay region on Tuesday, drawing condemnation from an Alaska Native corporation opposed to the project.

The Pebble Performance Dividend will share 3% of the net profits from the copper, gold and molybdenum mine, Pebble Limited Partnership said in a statement on Tuesday.

The mine won’t make a profit during its initial years of construction, but Pebble pledged to provide $3 million annually during that period to ensure a dividend. Under that plan, if 3,000 residents applied for the program, each would receive $1,000 once construction starts, the company said.

“Developing a mine at Pebble will provide jobs, economic activity, local tax revenue and infrastructure,” said Tom Collier, Pebble chief executive.

The program will provide one more way local residents can benefit, he said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could permit the Pebble mine this summer. If permitted, the open-pit mine would be about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage, near salmon-producing headwaters of the valuable Bristol Bay fishery.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Questions surround Pebble Mine’s environmental review

June 12, 2020 — Just months away from deciding whether to permit construction of the proposed Pebble Mine, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is wrapping up its environmental review. In early April, USACE received the last round of feedback from a selection of federal, state, local, and tribal groups. Some of that feedback — recently acquired and released by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) using the Freedom of Information Act — is quite pointed.

Reviewing the released critiques, Dennis McLerran, who from 2010 to 2017 ran the Environmental Protection Agency office in the region that includes Alaska, says that stakeholder agencies think USACE is taking too narrow of a view of the Pebble Mine’s potential environmental impacts, and isn’t addressing fundamental issues with the project even at this late stage.

The Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) plans to build an open-pit mine in a largely undeveloped stretch of southwest Alaska to extract a fraction of what may be the world’s biggest unexploited deposit of copper and gold. The proposed site for the mine lies under two rivers that drain into Bristol Bay, home to one of the world’s most productive wild salmon fisheries. That geography has contributed to a long and heated battle over the proposed mine, which has gained new momentum under the Trump administration.

Read the full story at the High Country News

EPA opts not to delay controversial Alaska mine for now

June 1, 2020 — A top official at the Environmental Protection Agency informed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska late Thursday that the EPA would not formally object at this point to the proposed Pebble Mine, a massive gold and copper deposit where mining could damage the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Christopher Hladick, the EPA’s regional administrator for Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, wrote to the Alaska district engineer, Col. David Hibner, that the agency still has serious concerns about the plan, including that dredging for the open-pit mine “may well contribute to the permanent loss of 2,292 acres of wetlands and … 105.4 miles of streams.”

But Hladick said the EPA would not elevate the matter to the leadership of the two agencies, which could delay necessary approvals for the project to advance. The EPA “appreciates the Corps’ recent commitment to continue this coordination into the future,” he wrote.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Alaska’s Controversial Pebble Mine Was Dead. Not Anymore.

May 28, 2020 — The Bristol Bay region in southwest Alaska is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, a resource that brings in $1.5 billion annually and provides a vital food source for thousands of Alaska Native residents who live there.

It’s also home to a vast copper and gold deposit worth an estimated $500 billion, known as the Pebble Deposit. A plan to extract that wealth by building a massive open pit mine at the heart of the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay watershed has become the environmental fight of the century for Alaska.

FRONTLINE told that story in Alaska Gold, broadcast in 2012, when the mine’s opponents seemed to have won the day.

But the Pebble mine got a new lease on life under the Trump administration, and in late 2017, the Pebble Partnership, the company behind the mine, filed for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Read the full story at Frontline

In survey, Alaska fishermen offer guidance for use of pandemic relief funds

May 27, 2020 — A rapid survey response by nearly 800 Alaska fishermen will provide a guideline for giving them a hand up as the coronavirus swamps their operations.

The online survey from April 14 to May 3 by Juneau-based nonprofit SalmonState asked fishermen about their primary concerns both before the COVID-19 outbreak and in the midst of the pandemic in April. It also asked what elected officials at local, state and federal levels can do to help them directly.

Over half of the 817 responses came in over four days, said Tyson Fick, SalmonState communications adviser.

“Clearly, people were interested to have their stories heard and to weigh in. In several ways we feel like we had a very broad swath of regions and gear types and fishermen,” he said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Opponents lose court case against Alaska mine near fishery

April 21, 2020 — Opponents have lost a court case against the proposed copper and gold mine near a major salmon fishery in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could withdraw a “proposed determination” about potential negative mine impacts dating from 2014, Alaska Public Media reported Sunday.

The determination had concluded the mining project, named the Pebble Mine, posed too great a threat to the salmon-rich waters of Bristol Bay.

The judge’s ruling was based on the amount of latitude government agencies have and what is subject to legal review, rather than the merits or dangers of the mine.

The case focused on a “preemptive veto” the EPA issued during the administration of President Barack Obama, before Pebble Limited Partnership filed an application for the mine in Southwest Alaska.

The mine’s federal permit application is pending with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the EPA retains the right to veto the permit, a power that was not diminished by Friday’s ruling.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Seattle Times

ALASKA: Fishermen concerned over Pebble employee appointed to Board of Fisheries

April 9, 2020 — While communities and fishermen in Bristol Bay are facing an immediate challenge in deciding if and how to hold the $300 million salmon fishery in a few weeks, an appointment to the Board of Fisheries is adding to the stress felt by many in the region.

On April 1, Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced appointments to boards and commissions. Among the governor’s appointments is Abe Williams, who is an employee of the Pebble Partnership, the company looking to build a open pit copper, gold and molybdenum mine in Southwest Alaska. According to the company’s preferred alternative plan submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the fully-developed mine site would be more than 8,300 acres, a land area the size of the City of Wasilla.

Williams was born and raised in Naknek, currently lives in Anchorage, and is a fourth-generation Bristol Bay fisherman. However, his position on Pebble Mine has bothered both commercial and sport fishermen in Bristol Bay. Williams is currently the Director of Regional Affairs for the Pebble Partnership.

In 2015, Williams was elected to serve as the Board President for the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. His election and reports that followed prompted the organization to issue a notice to its members that “The position of the BBRSDA and the near-unanimous views of its 1,650 members are unchanged. A resolution passed by the board of directors in 2014 stating that the BBRSDA opposes large-scale mining in Bristol Bay’s watersheds is, and continues to be, the position of this organization.”

In April of 2019, Williams and five other fishermen sued the BBRSDA for using part of its 1
percent tax collected from the Bristol Bay drift fleet to advocate against the Pebble Mine. The Pebble Partnership funded the lawsuit. The judge dismissed the case the following month.

Read the full story at KTUU