Fisheries advocacy can be a hard and, at times, seemingly hopeless slog. Too many times, we put in hours—or, in many cases, years—trying to move the management process forward, only to find that our efforts seemed futile.
Sometimes, contrary to science and public opinion, we see
the short-term thinkers win, as current landings and current income are deemed
more important than the future of a particular stock of fish.
Sometimes, we try to push the process forward, only to see
backward-looking managers cling to the paradigms of a forever-gone past,
forcing us to rearrange our thinking until, when things don’t get any worse, we
can still view it as some kind of win.
Do that for enough years, and it can’t do anything but begin to erode your resolve, and get you thinking that if you never seem to win, maybe there’s no point in keeping up the fight.
These days, I hear that a lot with striped bass, particularly after the
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s adoption of Addendum
VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan
which, largely because
of concessions made to New Jersey and Maryland, is more likely to fail than
succeed, and contains no clear plan for rebuilding the striped bass stock—even
though Amendment 6
to the management plan clearly states that the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass
Management Board “must” rebuild the stock within 10 years, once it becomes
overfished.
I know quite a few striped bass fishermen who tell me that
they don’t even know whether it’s worth trying to affect the direction of the upcoming
Amendment 7 to the striped bass management. Because, they say, they know that the
ASMFC is more interested in killing fish and maximizing current profits than in
conserving fish and providing for a healthy and abundant stock in the future,
so why waste time pretending otherwise?
And given the ASMFC’s record so far, it’s hard to provide
any examples that support an opposing view.
So instead I just tell them that the battle isn’t over, and
that the only time that you truly lose is the day that you lay down and stop
fighting. So long as you fight, you have
hope.
So what does that have to do with Bristol Bay, it’s salmon,
and the infamous Pebble Mine?
In fact, quite a bit.
For those who aren’t completely familiar with what’s going
on in Bristol Bay, here’s a quick primer:
Bristol Bay is a nearly pristine waterway, fed by a system
of rivers that host runs of all five species of Alaskan salmon, including the
world’s largest run of wild sockeye.
And all of those salmon are completely wild; not a single hatchery scars
the watershed’s shores.
The
United States Environmental Protection Agency described the region this way:
“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.
“…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 Denna’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…
“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 its 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.”
It seems almost too good to be true: A pristine wilderness with abundant natural
resources, that nonetheless generated 14,000 jobs and nearly half of a billion
dollars in direct economic benefits each year.
Bristol Bay sounds like a model for economic development in
a wilderness setting.
Unfortunately, good things never seem to last, and always end
up being threatened.
In the case of Bristol Bay, that threat came in the form of the
so-called Pebble Mine, a proposed open-pit mine that would gouge a hole a mile
square and a third on a mile deep in what now is wilderness. The mine would consume 35,000,000,000 gallons
of water each year, some taken from two nearby rivers, the rest from
underground aquifers.
Substantial
construction of infrastructure to support the mine would be required.
Such development would clearly destroy the pristine
wilderness of the Bristol Bay watershed, and poses an existential threat to the
health of the Bay’s salmon runs and to the 14,000 jobs that the salmon and
other natural resources of the Bay can provide year after year, the
Pebble Mine is likely to provide only 1,000 jobs, and only for twenty-five
years.
It’s hardly surprising that most
Alaska residents, and a large majority of the residents of the Bristol Bay region,
oppose the Pebble Mine.
Across the United States, people who understand what the Bristol Bay watershed offers, and the damage that mining there would do, have lined up to oppose the Pebble Mine.
The sportsman- and outdoor industry-oriented Save
Bristol Bay effort has mobilized more than 250 businesses and advocacy groups,
and 31,000 individuals, to ask President Trump to stop Pebble Mine. All of the major environmental organization
have come out in opposition as well.
The fight intensified about fifteen years ago, and in
March 2014, Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator
appointed by President Barak Obama, invoked provisions of the Clean Water Act
to place a hold on any development of the Pebble Mine, saying that
“Extensive scientific study has given us ample reason to
believe that the Pebble Mine would likely have significant and irreversible negative
impacts on the Bristol Bay watershed and its abundant salmon fisheries.”
Although Northern Dynasty Minerals, the Canadian corporation
seeking to develop the Pebble Mine, sued the EPA in response, it appeared that the
mine’s opponents had scored a major victory.
Opponents of the Pebble Mine had their seeming victory
stripped away, and were forced back into a fight that they had thought was largely over. And now they were fighting on
unfavorable terrain, finding themselves arrayed not only against Northern
Dynasty, but against a Trump administration, and an EPA Administrator, more
concerned with exploiting and extracting natural resources than in protecting
them.
After that, everything seemed to head steadily
downhill.
In
July 2019, the EPA formally reversed the Obama-era decision that the Pebble
Mine would do irreversible harm to the Bristol Bay watershed and its salmon
fishery, bringing the mine one step closer to development.
But the opponents of Bristol Bay hung tough, and continued
to fight.
The Corps went so far as to argue that some of Alaska’s other
fisheries are conducted adjacent to various extractive industries, primarily
oil and gas, and have not been harmed, noting that
“The Cook Inlet salmon fisheries exist in an active oil and
gas basin and have developed headwaters of Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna
areas. The Copper River salmon fishery
occurs in a watershed with the remains of the historic Kennecott copper mine
and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the headwaters of portions of the
fishery. Both fisheries average higher
prices per point [sic] that the Bristol Bay salmon fishery.”
Wilderness values were, of course, not an issue.
At that point, it seemed as if the Pebble Mine was
unstoppable, unless litigation might block it, but going to court is always a
crapshoot, and seen as a last resort.
Still, the opponents of the Pebble Mine kept fighting, kept
asking for help, refused to surrender.
And a few weeks ago, something unexpected happened.
Donald
Trump Jr., the President’s son, came out against the Pebble Mine, saying
“As a sportsman who has spent plenty of time in the area, I
agree 100%. The headwaters of Bristol
Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances
with.”
Nick
Ayers, the former Chief of Staff for Vice President Mike Pence, uttered similar
sentiments.
“Suddenly, you are seeing a number of Republicans, including
some prominent ones, including some very conservative Republicans, saying, ‘Hold
on a moment—maybe Pebble Mine is not a good idea. Maybe you should do whatever you can not to
despoil nature…”
Of course, the mining folks are fighting back, with Tom Collier, CEO of the Pebble
Partnership, trying to trivialize the opposition by saying
“There is a group of elitist sportsmen in America that want
to keep Bristol Bay as their personal playground.”
(“Elitist sportsmen.” That’s a phrase that advocates of striped
bass conservation might just have heard once or twice, cast in their direction. It seems that wherever you are, folks with no
leg to stand on try to win fights the same way.)
Despite Coller’s comments, Pebble Mine opponents suddenly
had reason to hope that, just maybe, their fight wasn’t in vain.
Yesterday, they got a bit more good news.
But even that would provide a chance for the mine to move
forward. POLITICO
has reported even more encouraging news, saying that
“The Trump administration is planning to block the proposed
Pebble Mine in Alaska early next week, six people familiar with the plans told
POLITICO, marking a surprise reversal that could be the death knell for the
massive copper and gold project.
“…The people said they’re not entirely sure what form Trump’s
disavowal will take, although they said it is more likely to come as a rejection
of the Army Corps of Pebble’s water permits rather than a veto from EPA, which
earlier this year said it would not exercise that power.”
But, in the end, the form doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter why Trump, who has always
seemed deaf to conservation arguments, seems willing to take on Pebble Mine.
Maybe he’s doing it for his son. Maybe he’s doing it for other Republicans,
who understand Bristol Bay’s value, or to placate important donors ahead of
what promises to be a very expensive campaign.
Maybe he wants some sort of pro-environment message that he can take
into the Republican Party convention; it’s hard to find a better message
than one that makes environmentalists happy, makes sportsmen happy, makes
Alaskans happy, won’t harm a single American company, and will only hurt the
business prospects of foreign mining interests.
That sounds like a win for everyone.
Except, of course, for the Pebble Mine folks.
That’s why you can never stop fighting. Sometimes, the stars just align, and you
catch a break.
I experienced the same sort of thing years ago, when we were
trying to rein in a runaway commercial blackfish (tautog) fishery. Blackfish had been a low-value species, but
after an ethnic live-fish market exploded in the northeast, live blackfish
became a much in-demand, high-value item.
The stock was crashing right before our eyes.
As usual, the ASMFC didn’t do anything, adopting
half-measures and then delaying even their implementation in the face of
political opposition. At the time, I
belonged to a conservation group in New York that was trying to get the state
to adopt significantly stricter regulations; while New York adopted a few stricter
measures, opposition from the commercial and for-hire fleets kept it from doing
enough.
Finally, we put together a bill and went to the state
legislature, asking them to make it happen.
If we got the bill through, commercial blackfishermen, which had no trip
limit at all, would only be able to take 25 fish per day, and gill netting for
them would be outlawed. It seemed like a
Hail Mary pass, with virtually no chance of success.
But a friendly lawmaker took up the bill, and it just so
happened that the Chair of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee
liked to catch blackfish. So he got
the bill through Committee and onto the Assembly floor. Support in the Senate wasn’t as strong,
as commercial fishermen had a little more influence there.
But the Assembly committee chair liked to play bare-knuckle
politics, and it just so happened that the Department of Environmental
Conservation’s authority to regulate blackfish was expiring. Unless it was renewed, blackfish would not be
regulated at all. So the Assembly made passage
of the blackfish conservation bill a condition precedent to renewing the
Department’s regulatory authority, both bills were passed, and the 25-fish trip
limit remains on the books to this day.
So yes, the stars did align.
But for that to happen, we had to stay in the fight, even when the odds were against us.
I bring that up to give everyone hope, especially with the
new striped bass amendment looming.
Things might not look too good right now. But when you keep fighting, sometimes unexpected
things happen, and if you’re nimble enough to take advantage of them, you can unexpectedly
win,
It happened with blackfish.
It looks like it might happen in Bristol Bay.
It can happen with striped bass and bluefish, too.
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