Bristol Bay a bright light for Alaska fishing

In a year when Alaskans around the state are left on the shores of closed rivers waiting and hoping for salmon, Bristol Bay is yet again the bright light of Alaska’s salmon fisheries. It’s one of the few regions experiencing record-high returns. On July 1, the Nushagak River saw a record harvest of 1.77 million sockeye in one day, and this season, the river has upheld the most stable king salmon runs in North America. At this urgent time in our state’s salmon history, I applaud Governor Walker for his recent letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in which he requested a suspension of their Environmental Impact Statement process for the Pebble Limited Partnership’s proposed mine in Bristol Bay’s headwaters.

It’s encouraging to see that our governor is listening to Alaskans and is willing to stand up to federal agencies and foreign corporations focused on short-term gains at Alaska’s expense. But where are the rest of our state’s elected officials? What will it take for them to stand up for Alaska? Are they waiting for a tailings dam to breach in Bristol Bay’s headwaters before they’ll admit salmon and large-scale mining cannot coexist in the headwaters of Bristol Bay?

The Army Corps just finished the first phase of the permitting process for Pebble’s permit application and is now reviewing the hundreds of thousands of comments. So far, the Army Corps’ process is anything but fair and rigorous. Instead, we’ve seen a sub-par permitting process that has silenced Alaskans and does nothing to make clear what the Pebble Partnership has proposed to build in both Bristol Bay’s headwaters and Cook Inlet’s remote western shoreline. Though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supposed to look out for the interests of the American people, it is increasingly clear that a foreign mining company is controlling the future of Bristol Bay’s fishery and our state’s economy.

Alaska’s leaders should be doing everything they can to ensure that the Pebble Partnership submits a complete and honest permit application to the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps of Engineers shouldn’t have advanced Pebble’s permitting process until all of the information was on the table, nor should they have rushed the public comment period while Pebble continues to change its mine plans. If Alaska’s Congressional delegation is truly pro-development and pro-business, then they should insist that Pebble conduct a feasibility study to help determine if the proposed Pebble Mine is even economically viable. That’s just good business sense. Instead, through all this, our leaders in D.C. have remained quiet. In their silence, they have given complete deference to a foreign mining company with no financial partner and have put full faith in a politically-driven federal agency that has actively silenced the people and communities most connected to Bristol Bay.

Here in Bristol Bay this summer, the fishermen are grateful for our thriving salmon runs and don’t take this year’s abundance for granted. We recognize the fragility of our robust salmon fishery and take our state’s constitutional mandate to manage for sustainable fisheries seriously. That’s why, on behalf of the thousands of Alaskans who participated in the Army Corps’ scoping comment period, I respectfully request that our leaders start to listen to their constituents and protect the best interest of Alaskans — not foreign mining executives in Vancouver. Specifically, I urge Alaska’s U.S. Congressional delegation to follow the lead of Governor Walker and request a suspension of the Army Corps’ permitting process.

The proposed Pebble Mine is among the largest threats to our state’s economy, communities, and people. So far, the Army Corps’ permit review process in Bristol Bay undermines our state’s commitment to responsible development and falls short of our high standards for science-based resource management, especially in a place as ecologically sensitive, economically valuable, and culturally irreplaceable as the Bristol Bay region. The time for action has come. It’s time to do not only what’s best for Alaska, but what’s right.

Mark Niver, Anchorage