The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that it would end its comment period for proposed restrictions on Pebble deposit growth. The comment period was originally scheduled to end in July. It will now continue for another two months until September 6.
EPA officials visited Dillingham and Newhalen earlier this month to hear public testimony about the agency’s proposal for waters around the Pebble reservoir. These were the first in-person public hearings since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
Dozens of bristol Bay citizens travelled to Dillingham to weigh.
Robin Samuelsen is a member of the Board of Directors of Bristol Bay Native Corporation. He has been fishing in the bay for 57 years. Now fishing with 4 grandchildren in his boat. Samuelsen suggested the EPA take steps to protect salmon trails that are part of the Alaska Native lifestyle.
“My circle of relatives has lived in Bristol Bay for thousands of years. Subsistence is the ultimate vital fish that can be offered to a person in Bristol Bay,” he said. “We live and die through our fish. “
If finalized, the EPA resolution would put federal protections in place for the South Fork Koktuli, North Fork Koktuli and Upper Talarik Creek watersheds. It would also impose restrictions on the discharge of mining waste around the proposed mine site.
Bertha Pavian-Lockuk arrived by plane to testify from Togiak, a network a few miles southwest of Dillingham.
“In those two minutes, you may not get all the detailed data that each and every user who came here from each and every village has. It’s not enough time for me, or for any of us,” he said. Said.
He thanked EPA officials for their presence in person and emphasized the importance of healthy salmon returning to his community.
“Our subsistence lifestyle, everyone here, continues. My children and grandchildren still live today. And we teach our children what we learned from our parents and grandparents,” he said. “It helps keep our network members healthy. “. . . And we’ve been through this COVID, we’re still going through it, and livelihood was our only way, the only source of food we could. In 2014, the Obama administration launched a proposal to uncover protections, and more than a million people, numbering tens of thousands of Alaskans, spoke out in favor of federal protections for Bristol Bay. In 2019, Trump’s leadership revoked the proposal.
In May, the EPA used its authority under the Clean Water Act to publish a revised proposal that included a multi-year environmental review investigation and Pebble’s mining proposal. EPA spokeswoman Suzanne Skadowski said the company found the mine would negatively affect salmon habitat in the area. .
“Basically, in the footprint of the mine, the fisheries are too delicate and also to make discards related to the mine, in that footprint,” he said.
But Skadowski says the EPA’s plan would restrict the exploitation of the deposit, as proposed by the Pebble Limited Partnership.
“It’s very fast for the Pebble deposit and the Pebble mine in this area, and not for any other progression or mining that can take place in Alaska, it’s very fast for your plan,” he said.
Many tribes, fishermen and conservationists in Bristol Bay seek comprehensive protections and bans for all mining activity in the vicinity of the bay.
Skadowski says the EPA can only limit excavation and dumping that would have an effect on waterways around the Pebble mine site. But the federal government can simply limit mining, for example, if Congress were to pass a law to create a protected domain in Bristol Bay.
At a hearing, Pebble Limited Partnership interim chief executive John Shively opposed the EPA’s restrictions on the mine and raised a call for copper resources.
“Copper is critical to the green economy,” Shively said. “This federal administration is not only attacking Pebble but also other mines, how do you think you are going to get all the minerals you want to make the economy green?”
Shively has been interim CEO since 2020, when former CEO Tom Collier resigned after the release of secretly recorded comments about close relationships with federal elected officials and regulators, known as “Pebble Tapes. “
Dillingham Mayor Alice Ruby said that since the EPA began deliberating on protections in Bristol Bay, the economic price of the advertising fishing industry has only increased. She says the city opposes any mining activity that puts her at risk.
“We are even more committed to protecting this industry from the enormous threat posed by large-scale mining in the very waters that protect our industry, our economy and our future,” Ruthrough said.
Bristol Bay is expected to see a record harvest of 75 million sockeye salmon this summer. Advertising fishing is estimated at around $2 billion in 2019 and 15,000 jobs.
The EPA announced last week that it would extend the era of comment on its proposal by two months. In a public hearing, the State Department of Environmental Conservation ruled in favor of an extension. But the belligerent parts of the mining sector have said they need this procedure. to finish as soon as possible.
EPA will accept written comments on proposed restrictions on the pebble deposit’s progress through Sept. 6. A final resolution is expected before the end of the year.
Corinne Smith is the director of the Nature Conservancy’s Mat-Su program.