Thursday, October 19, 2017

TIME TO PROTECT A NATIONAL TREASURE

Right now, up on the Alaskan coast, something very special and very rare could be in very deep trouble.

This season, 56 million sockeye salmon returned to the rivers that feed Bristol Bay.  And the fish aren’t genetically compromised, hand-raised fish produced at great cost in some government hatchery.  They are completely wild.


“The Bristol Bay watershed in southwestern Alaska supports that largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world…
“The Bristol Bay watershed provides habitat for numerous animal species, including 29 fishes, more than 190 birds, and more than 40 terrestrial mammals.  Chief among these resources is a world-class commercial and sport fishery for Pacific salmon and other important resident fishes.  The watershed supports production of all five species of Pacific salmon found in North America:  sockeye, coho, Chinook, chum, and pink.
“Because no hatchery fish are raised or released in the watershed, Bristol Bay’s salmon populations are entirely wild.  These fish are anadromous—hatching and rearing in freshwater systems, migrating to the sea to grow to adult size, and returning to freshwater systems to spawn and die.
“…The Bristol Bay watershed supports the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, with approximately 46% of the average global abundance of wild sockeye salmon…
“The Alaska Native cultures present in the Nushagak River and Kvichak River watersheds—the Yup’ik and Dena’ina—are two of the last intact, sustainable salmon-based cultures in the world.  Salmon are integral to the entire way of life in these cultures as subsistence food and as the foundation of their language, spirituality, and social structure…
“In the Bristol Bay region, salmon constitute approximately 52% of the subsistence harvest…
“These cultures have a strong relationship to the landscape and its resources.  In the Bristol Bay watershed, this connection has been maintained for at least the past 4,000 years and is in part due to and responsible for the pristine condition of the region’s landscape and the biological resources…
“The Bristol Bay watershed supports several economic sectors that are wilderness-compatible and sustainable:
·         commercial, sport and subsistence fishing
·         sport and subsistence hunting
·         non-consumptive recreation (e.g. wildlife viewing and tourism)
Considering all these sectors, the ecological resources of the Bristol Bay watershed generated nearly $480 million in direct economic expenditures and sales in 2009, and provided employment for over 14,000 full- and part-time workers.
“The Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery generates the largest component of economic activity and was valued at approximately $300 million in 2009 (first wholesale value) and provided employment for over 11,500 full- and part-time workers at the peak of the season.”
Intact natural salmon runs.  Sustainable industries that can continue in perpetuity, in harmony with the wild nature of the land, that bring in a half-billion (more recent estimates run as high as 1.5 billion) dollars in direct expenditures and provide more than 14,000 jobs in a place where jobs can be hard to find.  Ancient cultures that can still live off the land.  Bristol Bay seems to have it all.

Unfortunately, it also has mineral deposits that, if exploited, have the potential to destroy everything else.  Again, turning to the EPA for an explanation,

“The potential for large-scale mining development within the region is greatest for copper deposits and, to a lesser extent, for intrusion-related gold deposits.  Because these deposits are low-grade—meaning that they contain relatively small amounts of metals relative to the amount of ore—mining will be economic only if conducted over a large area, and a large amount of waste material will be produced as a result of mining and processing.
“The largest known deposit and the deposit most explored to assess future mining potential is the Pebble deposit.  If fully mined, the Pebble deposit could produce more than 11 billion metric tons (1 metric ton = 1,000 kg, approximately 2,200 pounds) of ore, which would make it the largest mine of its type in North America.”
Such a huge mine would clearly not be “wilderness-compatible,” and mining by its very nature is not a sustainable activity—mining companies merely rip the ore from the earth and move on, leaving “a large amount of waste material” behind.  Should the Pebble deposit be mined, the scars, abandoned structures and discarded equipment that remain on the site would permanently degrade the countryside, and  make it less appealing for those interested in wildlife watching and other ecotourism uses.

Yet that would be the least of the problems that such a mine would cause.


“Quinn’s concerns are based on his years researching the bay, which were incorporated into a 2014 EPA report on Bristol Bay under the Obama administration.  The report, which was also based on Pebble’s filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, estimated the total mine size could be larger than Manhattan and nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon.
“Such a mine ‘would result in complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources’ in some areas of the bay watershed, the EPA found after three years of peer-reviewed research.  In particular, the EPA estimated that 22 miles of streams and more than 6 square miles of wetlands and other habitats that are important to salmon and other fish would be lost to a large-scale mine.
“’All of these losses would be irreversible,’ the agency said.”
Thus, the Environmental Protection Agency knows that Bristol Bay is a very special place, which hosts a spectacular run of sockeye salmon that has sustained native peoples for at least four millennia, and continues to provide sustenance, jobs and economic benefits today.  It knows that development of a mine on the Pebble deposit would cause irreparable harm to both the nature of the region and to its irreplaceable salmon runs.

Even so, CNN reports,

“Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt met on May 1 with the CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership [which wants to mine the Pebble deposit]…Little more than an hour later, according to internal e-mails, the administrator directed his staff to remove Obama-era protections for Bristol Bay…”
Apparently, Pruitt had met with his corporate masters, gotten his marching orders, and proceeded to put one of the most unique natural treasures of this nation on the auction block, to be mined by a Canadian company which, when it is done, will almost certainly have destroyed most of the salmon as well as the 14,000 American jobs that they support, salmon and jobs that otherwise could have survived throughout the foreseeable future.

While the final decision has not yet been made on the Pebble mine—the permitting process must still be completed—the fish, the people and the very character of the Bristol Bay watershed have never been more directly threatened.  

The current administration seems to have little concern for environmental values; its recent, wrongheaded decisions with respect to Gulf of Mexico red snapper and New Jersey summer flounder certainly make it clear that the health of America’s fish stocks are not an Administration concern.

The EPA is no longer accepting public comment on its decision to roll back protections for Bristol Bay; the window for that closed yesterday.  But there should be additional opportunities to comment during the permitting process itself, and even if the EPA grants the permits needed to mine—as Pruitt’s EPA almost certainly will—it’s a near-certainty that people who care about Bristol Bay and value its wild abundance will bring suit to challenge any such decision.

It’s important that all of us take whatever opportunity is offered to protect a national treasure, and to support the folks fighting for its survival.


“Bristol Bay’s thousands of fishing jobs and way of life cannot be put at risk by Pebble.  Pebble Mine will always be the wrong mine in the wrong place.
“Fish first.  Pebble never.”
Pebble never.

We should do all we can to make those words come true.

  

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