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YOUR BACKCOUNTRY
A Chance to Prove Ourselves
Bristol Bay protections are closer, but there’s still work to be done
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BY BJORN DIHLE
In July of last year, I was trying to work a damaged underwater camera for a film crew I was guiding on Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska. Two skinny brown bears were squaring off over a fishing hole, which at best held one or two pink salmon, when a message beeped through my Garmin inReach. It was the second year in a row that no chum salmon had shown up in the streams I was working. Not so long ago they were thick. There were fewer pinks, too. In some streams, they were nearly nonexistent. The inReach message informed me that Bristol Bay’s 2021 sockeye run was a record-breaking 66 million fish.
In stark contrast to Bristol Bay, Southeast Alaska’s salmon are in rapid decline. In both, salmon are the backbone of the ecosystem.
In much of Alaska, Canada and the lower 48, wild salmon are dwindling. There’s a lot of debate over why, but most agree it’s a combination of changes in the ocean resulting from climate change, overfishing, competition with hatchery fish and habitat loss and pollution. Clearcut logging along salmon streams, contamination and industrial development in freshwater habitat doesn’t help either. There seems to be no general consensus or plan on what needs to be done to save wild salmon. A few retired Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists I’d talked with about it were bitter, going so far as saying that the agency will “manage them to the last one” and that “they’ve done more harm than good.”
The department has given the OK to birth millions of salmon in metal hatchery bins, which are then sent into the ocean as compensation to the fishermen for the depletion of wild salmon. This is in spite of the best-available science, which suggests that adding millions of hatchery-spawned fish to compete with wild fish for food in a changing ocean only exacerbates the problem.
The one place where wild salmon are still breaking records is Bristol Bay. It’s an enormous series of river systems that, for the most part, are still in the same pristine, undeveloped condition they were in hundreds of years ago. The bay is a place where ecology, economy and culture are so intertwined they’re inseparable. I’ve been lucky to experience many ecological wonders, but I can’t recall seeing anything on the same scale as Bristol Bay’s sockeye salmon run. The flood of salmon can almost be overwhelming, as can the commercial driftnet fishery, which French ocean explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau likened to sharks in a feeding frenzy.
More than half of the world’s sockeye population comes from the bay. Salmon support 15,000 jobs and the region’s $2.2 billion commercial fishing industry; the fishing, bear viewing and hunting generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually. A mind-blowing 75 million sockeye are predicted to head back to Bristol Bay during the 2022 season.
It’s wild to think that not so long ago bison once roamed the Great Plains on the same scale. Two hundred years ago, who would have guessed the bison’s population would be reduced to next to nothing – or that for the most part future generations would barely think about the ecological and cultural destruction and loss caused by their extermination?
It’s not hide hunters, cattle ranchers or railroad barons that threaten Bristol Bay; it’s the Pebble Mine – a massive mine proposed at the bay’s headwaters. Mining interests claim the Pebble
Deposit is one of the largest undeveloped resources of gold and copper in the world, estimating it to be worth around $500 billion. In 2001, the Canadian company Northern Dynasty Minerals purchased the rights to Pebble. Proponents say America needs gold, copper and other minerals and that we shouldn’t depend on other countries for them – many of which have little to no environmental protections. They ignore the fact that as soon as the foreign corporations that mine Alaska’s minerals get them out of the ground, the minerals are foreign-owned – and that those corporations can then ship them overseas for processing. Pebble, if built to its full capacity, would be the largest open-pit mine ever built in North America. It would create a footprint that would eventually engulf hundreds of miles of sensitive, currently pristine salmon habitat.
The Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Army Corps of Engineers have all concluded Pebble would permanently damage Bristol Bay and its salmon runs.
BHA member and fishing and hunting guide Tia Shoemaker has been fighting tooth and nail against the proposed mine. Tia grew up on the tundra amidst rivers red with sockeye and has a deep connection to Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula.
“Bristol Bay is one of the last great game fields and is home to the world’s densest population of brown bears. The entire food web is based on the salmon, as they truly are the lifeblood of the area. Without them, the entire region’s ecosystem would collapse. Pebble will affect our hunting and fishing opportunities directly and indirectly, immediately and in perpetuity. Infrastructure, environmental degradation, toxic sludge-filled lakes, dams, flooding – the list goes on. There is still time to learn from our past mistakes. Bristol Bay is a chance to prove to ourselves that greed doesn’t outweigh our desire for wild places,” Shoemaker said.
Jacob Mannix, a lifelong Alaskan and BHA’s former Alaska chapter coordinator, couldn’t agree more.
“Protecting Bristol Bay isn’t only about following good science or protecting economies – it’s about standing up for our values and traditions. Future generations of hunters and anglers deserve places like Bristol Bay, and it’s our responsibility to pass it on to them,” Mannix said.
In 2011, six Bristol Bay tribes petitioned the EPA for permanent protections under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act. In 2014, the EPA agreed those protections were necessary, stating “the infrastructure necessary to mine the Pebble Deposit jeopardizes the long‐term health and sustainability of the Bristol Bay ecosystem.” They issued a 404(c) Proposed Determination, which warranted preemptive protections by denying the permits that would enable Pebble Mine to be developed – something that has been proposed only 30 times and completed only 13 times in the Clean Water Act’s 50-year history.
That summer, I commercial fished Bristol Bay. It lived up to all the hype and then some. The closest thing the flood of salmon reminded me of was watching thousands of caribou move across the tundra. That much nonhuman life moving together seemed miraculous, especially in this day and age of pavement and electronic screens. Around 40 million sockeye returned in 2014 – only a little more than half of what’s predicted for 2022. There didn’t seem a place more deserving of protections to keep it healthy.
However, right after the EPA proposed protections, the Pebble Limited Partnership sued, preventing the agency from moving forward. In 2017, former Pebble CEO Tom Collier and former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had a closed-door meeting. Soon afterward, Pruitt announced he was withdrawing the EPA’s 2014 assessment and Proposed Determination. In 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers seemed on the verge of permitting the mine despite the fact more than 90% of Bristol Bay residents, two-thirds of Alaskans and hundreds of thousands of Americans voiced their opposition to Pebble during the 2019 public testimony period. It all seemed too nuts too be true. Then, it got even wilder.
In September of 2020, the Environmental Investigation Agency released secret videotapes of Tom Collier and Northern Dynasty Minerals CEO Ronald Thiessen bragging to actors posing as investors that they had a direct line to the White House through Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a supporter of Pebble, and that Alaska’s two senators secretly supported the mine. A day later Collier resigned, and Alaska’s senators came out swinging in strong opposition to the mine. The tide had turned, and momentum was building for permanent protections to become a reality.
The Army Corps of Engineers denied Pebble’s permit in late November 2020, saying in its press release that “the applicant’s plan for the discharge of fill material does not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines,” and “the proposed project is contrary to the public interest.” A year later, after a lawsuit from multiple partners and an appeal from Trout Unlimited, the United States District Court for the State of Alaska overturned the EPA’s 2019 decision to withdraw protections.
This May, after a long wait, the EPA again proposed protections for the watershed based on updated science. The agency’s revised determination will prohibit discharge of dredged or fill material associated with mining at the Pebble Deposit.
“The Bristol Bay watershed is a shining example of how our nation’s waters are essential to healthy communities, vibrant ecosystems and a thriving economy,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan was quoted as saying in the agency’s press release. “EPA is committed to following the science, the law and a transparent public process to determine what is needed to ensure that this irreplaceable and invaluable resource is protected for current and future generations,” it stated.
Bristol Bay residents, fishermen and Native American tribes, as well as citizens across Alaska and North America, came out in force to support the immediate finalizing of these proposed protections – and then, as a second step, permanently protecting Bristol Bay’s fisheries and watersheds from other potential largescale mining projects via legislation.
“Two decades of living under the shadow of this potential massive mine and toxic waste dump is enough,” said Tim Bristol, ex-
-Tia shoemaker
