AK Fishermen Celebrate Army Corps Actions

The Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association and Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay issued the following joint statement yesterday pertaining to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to place stricter requirements on Pebble’s proposed compensatory mitigation plan:

Alaskan Fishermen celebrate US Army Corps of Engineers conclusion: Pebble Mine would cause significant harm to Bristol Bay
Final Clean Water Act protections now necessary and justified to protect Alaska’s greatest salmon fishery

DILLINGHAM, AK - Today Bristol Bay’s fishermen commend the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) decision to forgo a permit issuance and instead require the Pebble Partnership (PLP) to create a new compensatory mitigation plan for the proposed Pebble Mine.

In a letter to the Pebble Limited Partnership, the Corps wrote that the Alaska District has “made factual determinations that discharges at the mine site would cause unavoidable adverse impacts to aquatic resources and, preliminarily, that those adverse impacts would result in significant degradation to those aquatic resources.”

The Corps is now requiring that PLP submit a new mitigation plan that repairs and restores damages to Bristol Bay’s Koktuli watershed; given that the harm from the project will be massive and the area currently contains very little degraded wetlands to improve, that should be an impossible task, and the project should not move forward. Army Corps’ findings support action through section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act to protect the important aquatic and fisheries resources at risk in Bristol Bay.

Bristol Bay fishermen have fought this project and the harm it would bring to our fishery for more than a decade. In announcing its decision, the Army Corps acknowledged, “the project, as proposed, would likely result in significant degradation of the environment and would likely result in significant adverse effects on the aquatic system or human environment,” confirming the concerns fishermen have raised throughout the project’s history and permitting process.

“Bristol Bay’s commercial fishermen applaud the Army Corps and Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan for making a commitment to safeguard the world’s largest wild salmon run. Alaska’s Senators have repeatedly made it clear that the project would need to pass a very high bar to advance through permitting, without trading one resource for another,” said Andy Wink, Executive Director of the Bristol Bay Seafood Development Association. “This determination highlights the extensive damage the Pebble Mine would have on salmon habitat.”

“Today’s decision by the Army Corps not to green light Pebble’s permit and instead require a mitigation plan for this project was refreshing and positive news to our fishermen and a huge step in the right direction,” said CFBB Director Katherine Carscallen. “We are finally seeing the permitting agencies reach the same conclusions and concern our industry has been voicing for decades; development of the Pebble Mine would cause significant and unacceptable harm to Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery and must not be permitted.”

“Alaskans have agreed for years that trading 14,000 American fishing jobs in favor of a foreign owned mine is unacceptable,” said Robin Samuelsen, a veteran Bristol Bay fisherman in Dillingham. “Today the Army Corps made it clear they agree and now we just need Alaska’s leadership to stand with Alaskans and support final and permanent Clean Water Act protections for Bristol Bay.”