Don’t let EPA railroad our future

To the editor:

The EPA’s Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment is an inadequate study built on hypotheticals and is a dangerous rush to judgment. The precedent it sets threatens the future development of our state for years to come. As Alaskans, we cannot stand by and allow the EPA to push this state backward. We need to move forward.

Alaska is a huge state with an abundance of resources. We also have a lot of people who desperately need work. There will always be a trade-off between extraction and the environment when it comes to developing natural resources. But the modern techniques and technology available can put people back to work and extract resources in an environmentally sound way.

We must look to the future for a safe and rational way to use our resources. I believe Pebble offers the opportunity to carefully and wisely extract them.

The EPA should spend more time collaborating with industry to enable economic development that protects the environment. Instead, it is driving a wedge between the two issues important to all Alaskans: job creation and environmental sustainability. The EPA studied a 20,000-square-mile area in nine months. Its shoehorned assessment was not submitted for peer review — perhaps because it lacks sound science. On top of that, the EPA only seems to care to hear from a select few. The agency not only gave the public a laughable eight days notice for the first hearing, but it was held in Washington state!

The Pebble Project affects Alaska and Alaskans first and foremost. We deserve the opportunity to review the assessment and share our thoughts about the EPA’s actions. To allow just 60 days to comment is unacceptable and, frankly, disrespectful. The EPA needs to seriously reconsider its actions and give us the courtesy of the customary 120-day comment period.

We have too much riding on a project this size. There are too many jobs and livelihoods at stake to allow the EPA to railroad our future.

Cynthia Lovel

Wasilla