Urging the EPA to Protect Bristol Bay

August 25, 2020

PCC joined a Businesses for Bristol Bay letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), imploring them to leverage their authority under the Clean Water Act to block development of the Pebble Mine.

Bristol Bay, located in Southwest Alaska, is one of the last great wild salmon fisheries left in the world, with more than 40 percent of the world’s wild sockeye coming from the bay. Yet for over a decade, Bristol Bay’s fishing industry and communities have been overshadowed by a proposed Pebble Mine project; a massive open pit mine to extract gold and low-grade copper ore in a seismically active, wet, and porous region at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed.

In the continuing battle against development of the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its final Environmental Impact Statement on Friday, July 24, 2020. Recommending development of the mine, the final EIS is one of the last steps toward official approval of the potentially devastating project. The EPA, however, has the ability under the Clean Water Act to override the EIS approval for Pebble Mine.

Read the full letter here.