Heads up: The lead agency reviewing Pebble’s key federal permit just released a draft of the most important document in the process that could lead to Pebble mine. If you love fishing in Bristol Bay, or one day hope to pay a visit to ‘salmon country’ and the region of massive rainbow trout, we need your help to make sure Pebble is not given permission to wreck one of the world’s last healthy wild Pacific salmon fisheries.

The purpose of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is to list potential risks and benefits that Pebble, in its current proposal, could bring to Bristol Bay. So far the permitting process has been unnecessarily rushed and the DEIS that was just released fails to address the full impact of the multi-generational mine that Pebble advertises to its funders.  Instead, this DEIS only evaluates Phase 1 of the project – this is unacceptable.  Pebble is only economically viable at a much larger size than currently proposed and its impact must be assessed accordingly.  The salmon of Bristol Bay are an irreplaceable resource that demand a rigorous permitting process and cannot fall victim to the inadequacies of the rushed permitting process we are witnessing.

The national comment period on the DEIS will open on March 1st.   Our team of scientific and technical experts is reviewing the 1,600+ page document as quickly as possible. Once they’ve finished their review, we’ll send a full summary of what’s included, how it would impact world-class fishing opportunity in Bristol Bay (and much more), and how you can weigh in. 

You can help:

1. IF YOU ARE IN ALASKA: Click here to contact Senators Murkowski and Sullivan and Representative Young and ask them to extend the timeline and represent the best interests of Alaskans, not an Outside mining company. Science and history contradict Pebble’s claims that the mine won’t harm the fishery and 90 days is too brief for concerned citizens to review the DEIS and provide meaningful comment.

2. Please consider a donation, all donations to our Bristol Bay work will be matched by a gift from Orvis. It will take all of us to push back on Pebble’s false claims and protect the world-class fishery we love. We need to be able to conduct scientific and technical review, produce materials about its contents, fly Bristol Bay residents and business owners to Juneau and Washington, D.C. to meet with decision makers. This work is critical and we need your help to make it possible.

Stay tuned for more ways to help. We are looking for volunteers to help spread the word (click here to sign up) and starting on MARCH 1, there will be a critical, nation-wide opportunity for us to weigh in on this document and Pebble’s permit application. We will let you know the moment that comment period opens. When it does, please tell your friends to join you in submitting a comment.

Our comments on this document will be extremely important. If this first permit is granted, it will likely trigger dozens of additional permits to be issued, and Pebble could soon be given a green light to begin mining the headwaters of Bristol Bay. 

We’re going to need help at every step of the way over the next 12-18 months to ensure that our decision makers at the state and federal level say NO to Pebble’s key permits.

As soon as our experts can review the information included in the DEIS, we will send out a short summary highlighting flaws in the Corps of Engineers analysis and make recommendations on how to formulate your comment.

More soon!

Nelli Williams
Trout Unlimited Alaska Program

P.S. Want to help out?  Sign up to volunteer or donate today.