Saving Seafood

ALASKA: After decades, a decision nears on the Pebble mine

July 16, 2020 — The proposed Pebble mine near Bristol Bay is nearing a landmark decision that could set the stage for the project’s approval, decades after developers first started considering the project.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said a final environmental impact statement is scheduled to be released a week from Friday.

The document, a review of the mine’s potential impacts on nearby land and rivers, could mean a final decision in late August for the federal agency to permit the controversial project.

The Corps will hold a call with reporters on Monday to “set expectations for the release of the (final environmental impact statement) on July 24,” said John Budnik, a spokesman with the Corps.

“This will mark one of the most significant milestones for the Pebble Project,” said Tom Collier, chief executive of Pebble Limited Partnership, in a prepared statement.

The developer released the statement on Wednesday highlighting the Corps’ timeline.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

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

ALASKA: Pebble sees signs in new federal report that mine will secure key approval

February 13, 2020 — A new version of a federal environmental review for the proposed Pebble mine has angered the mine’s opponents and encouraged its developer.

The Army Corps of Engineers will use the final review to decide whether to give the controversial mine a key permit it needs before it can be built.

The Corps had provided the report to several cooperating agencies involved in the review process, such as state and federal agencies and tribal governments. The Anchorage Daily News obtained an executive summary of the Corps’ preliminary final environmental review that was leaked to reporters.

The report could foreshadow what’s to come.

Tom Collier, chief executive of developer Pebble Limited Partnership, is pleased. He said the report’s release, and its major conclusions, indicate the company will see a decision in its favor by mid-2020.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

This Alaska mine could generate $1 billion a year. Is it worth the risk to salmon?

October 24, 2019 — A brown bear loped across rolling green tundra as Charles Weimer set down a light, single-engine helicopter on a remote hilltop.

Spooked, the big grizzly vanished into alder thickets above a valley braided with creeks and falls. Weimer’s blue eyes scanned warily for more bears. He warned his passenger, Mike Heatwole, to sit tight as the blades spun to a halt, ruffling red, purple and yellow alpine flowers.

The two men, each slim with a goatee, stepped out into the enveloping silence of southwest Alaska’s wilderness. Before them stretched two of the wildest river systems left in the United States. Beneath their feet lay the world’s biggest known untapped deposit of copper and gold.

Weimer and Heatwole worked for Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of a Canadian company that aims to dig Pebble Mine, an open pit the size of 460 football fields and deeper than One World Trade Center is tall. To proponents, it’s a glittering prize that could yield sales of more than $1 billion a year in an initial two decades of mining.

It could also, critics fear, bring about the destruction of one of the world’s great fisheries.

Read the full story at The Los Angeles Times

ALASKA: Unsound mine: Pebble commentary closes today

July 2, 2019 — Over the last 13 years that I’ve been watching and covering the ebbs and flows of Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska, I’ve followed the data trail, news stories about tailings ponds failures at similar mines, and the Pebble Corp.’s struggle to put together a plan and maintain financial backing.

My first take was that Alaskans understand the value of the full range of resource extraction — from finite fossil fuels and minerals to sustainable fisheries and wildlife hunting. They are pretty good at striking a balance since learning some hard lessons after the Exxon Valdez disaster and decades of lawsuits that followed, leaving fishermen and entire communities on the hard and Exxon comparatively unscathed.

Most Alaskans appreciate that their state is truly — and potentially perpetually — rich with a renewable bounty that should not be sacrificed for a short-term gain that is served with a side of toxic ponding. When it comes to fisheries, Alaska’s reach is expansive. People come from all over the Lower 48 and the world to fish Bristol Bay every summer — and millions of salmon lovers around the globe reap the benefits of that harvest.

After today, the fate of this fishery will be in the hands of the federal government. If you haven’t submitted public comment on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ draft environmental impact statement, now is your last chance. If you’re not sure what to write, consider using Quality Comment to help.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

US House minibus bill includes amendment to stop Pebble Mine

June 24, 2019 — The U.S. House of Representatives has advanced a fiscal 2020 “minibus” appropriations bill that includes an amendment that could hit the brakes again on efforts to mine for copper and other minerals in close proximity to the Bristol Bay, Alaska, wild-caught salmon fishery.

The legislation, which covers the budgets of the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Defense, State-Foreign Operations, and Energy and Water Development, was passed on Wednesday by a party-line vote of 226-203.

Earlier in the day the House voted, 233-201, to attach an amendment from representative Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, that cuts off funding to the Corps of Engineers to finish the environmental process needed to secure permits for the proposed Pebble Mine. In his argument for the change, Huffman, who is co-chair of the Wild Salmon Caucus, said what Pebble Limited Partnership wants to do near the headwaters of Bristol Bay is unprecedented, Alaska Public Media reported.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

US House approves anti-Pebble amendment; Young votes no, defends permit process

June 20, 2019 — The U.S. House voted 233-201 for an amendment that would block the Corps of Engineers from proceeding on a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine.

The sponsor, Rep. Jared Huffman, said what Pebble Limited Partnership wants to do near the headwaters of Bristol Bay is unprecedented.

“There is no other U.S. hardrock mining operation that captures and treats such a massive volume of contaminated mine water, which is harmful to fish and to public health,” Huffman said in the debate over his amendment. “We know that mines are not invincible. Things go wrong.”

Huffman, D-Calif., said an accident at the mine could devastate Bristol Bay’s valuable salmon fishery, degrade Native cultures and ruin businesses that rely on the region’s world-class sportfishing. His amendment cuts off funding to the Corps of Engineers to finish the environmental process that’s underway.

Alaska Congressman Don Young voted against the amendment – not to defend the mine, he said, but to support the permitting process.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Corps corrects end date for Pebble project comment period

May 22, 2019 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has corrected the closing date for the extended comment period for a draft environmental review of a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

The corps earlier this month said it was extending the comment period from 90 days to 120 days and said it would end June 29.

However, John Budnik, a spokesman for the corps, said by email Monday that a formal comment period cannot close on a weekend. He says the new close date is July 1.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Judge dismisses lawsuit brought by fishermen and paid for by Pebble

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.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Patagonia, Whole Foods, and others speak out against Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay

April 26, 2019 — A coalition of more than 200 businesses that includes Patagonia, Hy-Vee, Whole Foods, and PCC Markets drafted a letter this week to speak out against Pebble Mine, a proposed open-pit copper, gold, and molybdenum mine at the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

The letter from the group, known as Businesses for Bristol Bay, was addressed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Anchorage and requested that the Corps suspend its review of the permit application from the mining group, the Canada-based Pebble Limited Partnership.

Echoing the concerns of many, the Businesses for Bristol Bay said the process is incomplete and that officials are trying to rush the permit through.

Read the full story at Seafood Source