Aerial view of Frying Pan Lake in Alaska. If the proposed massive Pebble Mine, located between two prime salmon spawning streams, is ever built, Frying Pan Lake, would disappear beneath a giant pile of tailings. Bristol Bay is one of the world’s greatest fisheries. Photo: SeattlePI
Aerial view of Frying Pan Lake in Alaska. If the proposed massive Pebble Mine, located between two prime salmon spawning streams, is ever built, Frying Pan Lake, would disappear beneath a giant pile of tailings. Bristol Bay is one of the world’s greatest fisheries. Photo: SeattlePI

By Joel Connelly
8 October 2019

(SeattlePI) – Five Bristol Bay native and fisheries groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, seeking to restore Clean Water Act protection and block a giant open pit copper-goldmine proposed cheek-by-jowl with the world’s greatest sockeye salmon fishery.

The suit was filed on National Salmon Day.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, reportedly after intervention by President Donald Trump, in July withdrew a determination that the proposed Pebble Mine would cause enormous potential harm to rivers and wetlands where salmon spawn.

The mine would be located between two of the most productive salmon streams in the Bristol Bay fishery.

The project has also stirred resistance in the Seattle-Puget Sound area, where there are more than 1,100 licenses to fish in Bristol Bay waters. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), has been a vocal critic of the proposed mine.

The Trump administration not only broke the law, it made clear that local people have no voice in the management of our rivers, our streams and wetlands,.

Ralph Anderson, chief executive of the Bristol Bay Native Association

“Bristol Bay is the crown jewel of Alaska’s salmon industry: It is the most valuable sockeye fishery in the world, accounting for roughly half of the world’s sockeye salmon harvest,” said Andy Wink of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Assn.

“There’s simply no precedent for open pit mining coexisting with sockeye salmon on the scale proposed by the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay.”

The federal court suit claims the EPA’s action under Trump was illegal, arbitrary and capricious, and did not consider copious scientific and technical information developed in two years of study by the EPA under the Obama Administration. […]

The Trump administration “not only broke the law, it made clear that local people have no voice in the management of our rivers, our streams and wetlands,” Ralph Anderson, chief executive of the Bristol Bay Native Association, a consortium of 31 tribes, told a news conference. (Quote is courtesy of the Anchorage Daily News.) [more]

Battle over Bristol Bay mine: Native, fisheries groups sue Trump