“Bristol Bay is one of the last places on Earth …”
“…with such bountiful and sustainable harvests of wild salmon.” – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, when proposing in 2014 to restrict development of the Pebble deposit in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay watershed
But this wealth could be destroyed. The Pebble Mine could lay waste to Bristol Bay. We still have time. Together, we can save Bristol Bay.
Proposed Pebble Mine
Bristol Bay
Aug. 5, 2020
For more than a decade, the threat of a huge, open-pit copper and gold mine has loomed over the heart of pristine salmon spawning territory in Bristol Bay, Alaska.
The proposed Pebble Mine would directly impact the world’s greatest sockeye salmon run, putting in jeopardy thousands of American jobs, a cultural tradition of subsistence dating back 10,000 years, and a robust sport-fishing and tourism economy.
In a climate shaped by the Trump administration’s coziness with polluting industries, the company behind Pebble Mine is trying to sneak a permit through Clean Water Act regulations with the dubious promise of sticking to what it views as a “small” mine.
Yet even as proposed, the project entails mining a pit over a mile long, a mile wide and 200 meters deep, destroying nearly 3,500 acres of wetlands, lakes, and ponds and 81 miles of salmon streams. And that only includes waters directly displaced by mine facilities, not the thousands more acres that would be fragmented, dewatered, and covered with dust from the mine.
The 20-year proposal includes laying a 187-mile-long natural gas pipeline, constructing an 84-mile-long private transportation route crossing more than 200 streams and Iliamna Lake, and building dams and embankments that would block critical salmon habitats.
Bristol Bay is a sustainable economic powerhouse for local communities and the lifeblood for Alaska Native cultures who have lived there for millennia. It produces an enormous portion of the world’s sockeye salmon catch and one of the world’s largest Chinook salmon runs, fueling 14,000 jobs and Alaska’s $1.5 billion fishing economy.
Join Earthjustice in this continued fight for one of our world's surviving great ecosystems. We are committed to representing those who oppose unlawful and ill-advised mining in the vast expanse of Alaska and British Columbia.
Our Alaska-based attorneys wield extensive expertise in this arena, both on a national scale and in our Juneau office, which has battled some of the region’s worst hard rock and coal mine proposals.
Bristol Bay
219 million pounds
162 million pounds
The rest of the world
Other Alaska, lower-48 states, Canada, Japan, Russia
Wild Bristol Bay salmon feed people all across the country and the world. For the Alaska Native people who comprise the majority of the Bristol Bay area population, and whose cultures can be described as “salmon-based,” salmon have a significance even beyond sustenance and wealth.
Well aware of what they stood to lose, six Alaska Native tribes in Bristol Bay petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2010 to protect this beloved watershed from Pebble Mine. They were soon joined by a large, diverse group of people who also depend on the fishery, including more Bristol Bay tribes and tribal organizations, commercial and recreational fishermen, seafood processors and marketers, chefs, restaurants, supermarket owners, sport fishing and hunting lodge owners and guides.
Under the Obama administration, the EPA heard them. Following a multi-year rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific study of how important the watershed is and why, the agency found that even the smallest Pebble Mine would irreversibly damage the Bristol Bay ecosystem.
Things have changed dramatically under the Trump administration.
In a rushed process totally out of proportion with the project’s extensive destructive impacts, the Army Corps released its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) in Feb. 2019. The agency focused its analysis on Pebble’s 20-year proposal, barely even mentioning potential impacts of expanding the mine. Meanwhile, Pebble consistently tells their investors that Pebble Mine will grow beyond the proposal the Army Corps analyzed and will last generations.
What's happening now: Pebble Mine executives were caught on tape saying that they expect the project proposal they have submitted to the federal government to pave the way for as much as 180 years of mining – much more than the 20 years that the proposal states.
“Once you have something like this in production, why would you want to stop?” said the chief executive of mine operator Northern Dynasty Minerals in one of several recorded meetings that were made public on Sept. 21, 2020.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reviewing the Pebble Mine proposal for final approval and is expected to reach a decision in a matter of weeks. In July 2020, the Army Corps issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the mining project based on the 20-year plan that Northern Dynasty Minerals has been peddling to the government and the public. Meanwhile, the mining company has been touting a 78-year buildout to investors. The newly released recordings show that the company’s destructive ambitions are larger than previously known.
Even the Army Corps’ analysis of the 20-year plan belies the damaging reality of the project. Despite its incomprehensible predictions that Bristol Bay salmon would be unharmed, the FEIS omits critical details about how exactly Pebble would avoid harming fish.
It also admits that Pebble’s theoretical plan to treat an unprecedented volume of mine-polluted waste water could be inadequate, and insists that the chance of a serious tailings dam failure is so small it’s not worth considering.
However, scientific literature and actual examples of such disasters occurring throughout the world contradict such a finding. A geophysicist who produced a model on behalf of Bristol Bay fishermen found toxic mine tailings released into a river could be carried for 100 kilometers from the mine site.
In partnership with clients and partners, Earthjustice will be scrutinizing the FEIS and the agency’s forthcoming decision document, which would serve as the basis for potential litigation.
The proposed Pebble mine poses a significant and unacceptable risk of losing perhaps the world’s best remaining wild salmon fishery, and has the potential to destroy the critical cultural heritage and food supply that Alaska Native tribes in the area have relied on for millennia. 
Earthjustice’s Alaska Office has locations in Juneau and Anchorage.
Famed for its immense wilderness and abundant wildlife, the state is home to our country's only Arctic region, the Tongass National Forest, and a rich Alaska Native culture that dates back millennia. Since 1978, attorneys in our Alaska regional office have safeguarded public lands, waters and wildlife from destructive oil and gas drilling, mining and logging. Learn more.
