Saving Seafood

WASHINGTON: Seattle Harbor Expansion Would Push Out Endangered Whales, Conservation Group Says

March 5, 2021 — The Trump administration rushed through a project to expand Seattle Harbor for ultra-large container ships that would further threaten endangered Southern Resident killer whales, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

Only 75 Southern Resident killer whales swim the Salish Sea — a number that has increased since three baby whales were born in the relatively quiet waters of the pandemic. Noise from whale watching boats and ships headed to and from ports across the Pacific will increase when pandemic restrictions are lifted.

Added to that is a new worry: the underwater cacophony of ultra-large container ships that would visit Seattle Harbor, in the heart of the whales’ home waters, and the release of hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of toxic material dredged during the harbor project.

The three pods, or family lines, of Southern Residents took a major hit in the late 1960s when aquariums stole 45 Southern Residents from their families, and killed another 14 in the process. Only one of the whales taken during that time survives today: a 53-year-old whale who lives at the Miami Seaquarium. The Seaquarium calls her Lolita, while supporters who want her returned to a protected cove of the Salish Sea call her Tokitae.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

2020 was an eventful year for the Pebble Mine project

December 28, 2020 — It was a momentous year for people who have fought for and against the proposed Pebble Mine.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in November denied Pebble’s request for a federal permit, stopping the mine likely for good. The decision was met with mixed emotions from people in Bristol Bay.

Sue Anelon works for the Iliamna Development Corporation. She said the mine would have been a significant boost to village economies.

“I’ve seen the good and the bad,” she said. “When Pebble was here and a lot of people were working, they were paying for their own groceries, they were paying their own fuel. They were buying trucks, they were buying Hondas. People were paying for things. Now they can’t do that. They have to rely on the government.”

Billy Trefon Jr., a Nondalton resident, was elated by the decision.

Read the full story at KTOO

Shareholders file Pebble Mine class-action suit, parent company plans permit appeal

December 18, 2020 — This week, a group of shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against Northern Dynasty, claiming the company and its directors misled shareholders about the viability of the proposed Pebble Mine and that its stock prices were artificially inflated between Dec. 21, 2017, and Nov. 25, 2020.

Northern Dynasty is the parent company of the Pebble Limited Partnership, which owns the mineral rights to the Pebble deposit and has been promoting the mine to investors and engaging in the permitting process with Alaska’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

On Nov. 25, the Corps denied the permit application, stating the proposal did not “comply with Clean Water Act guidelines.” The stock took a nosedive of more than 50 percent immediately following the announcement. The permit process had been considered all but dead before the 2016 election of President Donald J. Trump, whose administration allegedly negotiated with Pebble officials to allow the permitting process to run its course.

On Dec. 17, 2020, two days after the class action filing, Northern Dynasty published a press release detailing its plans to file an appeal of the Corps’ decision, citing the quality of its mitigation plan to compensate for the degradation of habitat in the process of mining the deposit’s heavy metals.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ANDY SABIN: The conservative case against developing Alaska’s Pebble Mine

August 28, 2020 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week warned that the proposed Pebble project — a vast gold and copper mine near the headwaters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay — was impossible to build without causing significant damage to the region’s pristine waters and salmon fishery.

The Corps stopped short of halting the mine but found the developer, the Pebble Limited Partnership, was unlikely to meet the level of mitigation that would be required under the Clean Water Act to offset the impact on wetlands.

The Trump administration has now done what the previous administration would not — it gave the proposed Pebble project full consideration under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). While the previous administration pre-judged the project with an unprecedented preemptive veto, the Trump U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and all cooperating agencies have given it a full review.

It is time for President Donald Trump to be the decider. Given an already strong conservation record, President Trump should instruct his agencies to declare the Pebble project unworkable. 

I am a miner and a fisherman. I am also a dedicated conservationist who believes that we have a duty as conservatives to leave this great land better than we found it. I am also a staunch supporter of the president and his policies.

Read the full story at The Hill

Northern Dynasty’s U.S. unit denies report Alaska mine project to be blocked

August 24, 2020 — The U.S. unit of diversified Canadian miner Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd on Saturday denied a media report that said the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump plans to block its proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska early next week.

Politico reported here earlier on Saturday that Trump was planning to block the proposed Pebble Mine, which environmentalists argue would damage the surrounding salmon-rich habitat, and the people and wildlife that depend on it.

“We firmly believe that the implication pushed by Politico that the White House is going to kill the project is clearly in error, likely made by a rush to publish rather than doing the necessary diligence to track down the full story”, Pebble Limited Partnership said in a statement.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) office in Alaska is planning to hold a conference call on Monday with groups connected to the proposed mine to discuss its decision, Politico reported, citing people familiar with the plans.

Read the full story at Reuters

Corps to release review of Alaska mine project this week

July 21, 2020 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to release its final environmental review of a proposed copper and gold mine near the headwaters of a major salmon fishery in southwest Alaska, a review a corps official says will inform a permit decision expected later this year.

For years, the proposed Pebble Mine has been shrouded in controversy that release of the review expected Friday is unlikely to clear up. Some tribes, tribal groups, fishermen and others say the review has been rushed and is superficial.

Tom Collier, CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, the project developer, said the work done so far provides confidence the review will show “why we believe the project can be done without harm to the Bristol Bay fishery.”

The corps previously disclosed a preliminary determination that a northern transportation route would be part of a “least environmentally damaging practicable alternative.” David Hobbie, chief of the corps’ regional regulatory division, told reporters Monday that public comment, work with other agencies and review of information and impacts went into that determination.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at KTVA

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

A Flood of Catastrophe: How a Warming Climate and the Bonnet Carré Spillway Threaten the Survival of Coast Fishermen

May 1, 2020 — On a warm, sunny September morning, bait salesman Roscoe Liebig scanned the harbor’s vacant piers and shook his head in disgust. Liebig recalled his usual surroundings: a full parking lot, a line of fishermen hooking their bait, and oysters peaking out in a low tide. That day, all of it was gone.

In a typical year, he’d be outside peddling his shrimp and croakers, a type of bait fish, to fishermen passing by.

“This is catastrophic,” he said. Referencing another historic disaster, Liebig put 2019 in perspective: “BP could blow up a well and you’d do better than this. It’s a dying freaking industry, and this is just the icing on the cake.”

Inside “Roscoe’s Live Bait Works,” sitting on a barge in the Mississippi Sound, Liebig grows restless as he reviews his finances. Sales are down sharply from the previous year, and he worries that making even a small repair or upgrade to his boat could break the bank.

Read the full story at the Pulitzer Center

ALASKA: Bristol Bay seal suit: Endangered listing could disrupt Pebble Mine permit

February 13, 2020 — On Wednesday, Feb. 12, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reportedly conceded that there may be a new hurdle on the horizon for Pebble Mine permitting.

On Feb. 6, the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit seeking Endangered Species Act protection for Lake Iliamna harbor seals, one of only two harbor seal populations living exclusively in fresh water, whose population now numbers about 400, according to the center.

“Alaska’s unique and imperiled freshwater seals need federal protection,” said Kristin Carden, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Pebble Mine threatens the very survival of the Iliamna Lake seals and the fish species they depend on to survive. Even if the mine is stopped, climate change will drive these rare and beautiful animals toward extinction.”

Subsistence hunters in the region harvest lake seals. The center advises that its lawsuit would not interfere with subsistence hunting or fishing by Alaska natives. Whether it may affect commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay remains to be seen.

Read the full story at National Fisherman