Protect Bristol Bay from toxic water pollution!

Soon the EPA will take another step toward greenlighting Pebble Mine. The mine could pollute Bristol Bay with millions of gallons of toxic water.

To build it, developers would need to dig a massive pit on a 3,500-acre tract of land in one of our most fragile sub-Arctic ecosystems. But the EPA can still stop this project!

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Dear EPA Staff:
 
The proposed Pebble Mine should not be built in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska. Please use your authority to elevate your concerns to protect Earth’s last great wild salmon fishery, and start the process to veto its Clean Water Act permit.

Alaska's Bristol Bay region is home to world-class wildlife and fisheries that support thousands of American jobs, boasts one of the last thriving economies fueled by wild salmon, and is an iconic destination for hunters and anglers worldwide. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement shows that Pebble’s initial proposal, which would access around just 1/10th of the total deposit, would destroy crucial wetlands and salmon spawning streams. Based on Pebble’s own statements, repeated many times over the years, we know this is just the tip of the iceberg, and Pebble’s real plan is to expand to mine the full deposit, which could potentially destroy even more critical salmon habitat.

The proposed Pebble Mine poses a significant and unacceptable risk to the fish, water, and fish-based industries of the region, and has the potential to destroy critical cultural heritage and food supply that Alaskan Native tribes in the area have relied on for millennia. Current analyses of this project show devastating impacts on the economy of local communities, impacts from inevitable future expansion, groundwater management and pollution problems, and even the loss of perhaps the world’s best remaining wild-salmon fishery. There is no other alternative than to reject Pebble’s application.

That is why it is crucial for EPA to use your authority under the Clean Water Act section 404Q to elevate your concerns to the Army Corps of Engineers. Their rushed, flawed and inadequate Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) grossly underestimates risks to Bristol Bay’s world class fisheries and wildlife. EPA needs to heed the advice of experts, its three-year watershed assessment, and millions of Americans who demanded the agency take action to protect the last great wild salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay. The Army Corps of Engineers has failed in providing an objective EIS, so EPA must use its oversight authority granted by the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay.

Thank you for considering my position,
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