May 20, 2019 — A lawsuit brought by a small group of Bristol Bay commercial fishermen to keep a seafood marketing group from spending money to stop the Pebble copper and gold mine has been dismissed.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Yvonne Lamoureux said the plaintiffs did not make a valid claim. She dismissed the case on Friday.
Six fishermen, with funding from mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership, had argued that the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association had unlawfully spent $250,000 on efforts to stop the mine from being developed.
The marketing group is funded with a 1 percent tax on the harvest that Bristol Bay fishermen catch. The fishermen who sued — Gary Nielsen, Trefim Andrew, Tim Anelon, Henry Olympic, and Abe and Braden Williams -—said the group should only market seafood. Abe Williams also works for the Pebble projectas a regional affairs director.
Pebble has applied with the federal government for permits to build an open-pit mine. It would be located near salmon-producing headwaters of the Bristol Bay fishery, about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage.