Lindsay Abrams
Rick Halford is Republican to the core. The retired politician served the party in the Alaska state Legislature for 24 years, including stints as Senate president, as well as both Senate and House majority leader. Always, he has stood for free enterprise, individual rights and small business; typically, he’s been pro-development. He started “as a very seriously redneck Republican,” and saw little in his time in office to challenge his views.
But for Halford, there turned out to be one thing worse than a meddling federal government: Pebble Mine, a proposed open-pit copper mine that has the potential to destroy everything that makes his home like no place else on Earth. And in order to stop it, he had turn to the federally funded environmental agency that conservative Republicans like him love to hate.
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Even by Alaskan standards, Bristol Bay, site of the proposed Pebble Mine, is unique, though not in a way that would make it particularly appealing to outsiders. In emails we exchanged after he ventured there this past July, reporter Rowan Jacobsen described the local scene:
“So I was stunned,” Jacobsen wrote, “to hear so many of them calling on the EPA to protect them.”
The locals understand that what makes Bristol Bay special is below the surface. Yes, that means the 10.78 billion tons of minable ore that the Pebble Partnership wants to come in and exploit. But there are also the salmon – the resource that makes the region truly extraordinary. Here’s Jacobsen, again:
But what if the salmon don’t come back? Back in 2010, Francis Lam asked that very question in Salon. It’s the thought that’s been on everyone’s mind since the Pebble Partnership announced its intentions to develop a mine larger than the area of Manhattan atop this precious habitat. Such an extreme level of development, experts say, would be certain to pollute those super-clean lakes in which the salmon thrive. And the stakes, were something to go wrong, are massive — a reminder that became all the more poignant last week when a “massive failure” at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine in central British Columbia dumped an estimated 1.3 billion gallons of contaminants into that region’s salmon streams.
The B.C. First Nation announced Thursday that it will be evicting the mining company from its territory because, as Neskonlith Chief Judy Wilson explained, ”the industry has proven at Mount Polley that they can’t regulate all of that.” The earthen dams that would be used at Pebble Mine are being designed by the same company behind those that failed at Mount Polley; Pebble Mine itself is about 10 times the size. Were a similar “failure” to occur in Bristol Bay, the outcome would be an unequivocal disaster.
Alaska’s Republican-led government, located about a thousand miles away in Juneau, disagrees. The state insists that the opportunities presented by Pebble Mine justify the risk to the fishing industry that already thrives in Bristol Bay. The state has openly thrown its weight behind the Pebble Partnership – even going so far as to try to join the industry in a lawsuit against the EPA’s interference. From the perspective of those living in Bristol Bay, the state is fighting hard against their interests, in ways that can feel extremely personal.
“The State of Alaska has a very distinct way of controlling information and opinions, and putting pressure on people,” Izzetta Chambers, who runs Naknek Family Fisheries, a small-scale seafood processor in the area, observed. At the time the idea of the mine was first floated, she was working in business development for the region. She was open-minded about the idea, but it quickly became clear to her that a large-scale mining operation would directly conflict with the interests of her clients, who were mostly tourist operators or small fish processors. Yet her boss told her in explicit terms that she had to come out in favor of the mine. When it became clear that she would do just the opposite, she recalls it quickly became a hostile work environment.
“There seems to be this vibe in the (right-leaning) press that this fight is some sort of mismatch, with the big, bad federal government and its national environmental nonprofit allies coming down on the little, independent mining consortium and the State of Alaska,” Jacobsen observed. “But it’s actually just the opposite.” Big Mining had come in with the full support of the state, leaving no room for opposition. Chambers recalls going to borough planning sessions and hearing planners say, “This is a done deal. These types of things are practically impossible to stop.” They tried to squash official opposition at the municipal level, she said. “They made it seem like you just have to take this.”
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(contd)
Rick Halford is Republican to the core. The retired politician served the party in the Alaska state Legislature for 24 years, including stints as Senate president, as well as both Senate and House majority leader. Always, he has stood for free enterprise, individual rights and small business; typically, he’s been pro-development. He started “as a very seriously redneck Republican,” and saw little in his time in office to challenge his views.
But for Halford, there turned out to be one thing worse than a meddling federal government: Pebble Mine, a proposed open-pit copper mine that has the potential to destroy everything that makes his home like no place else on Earth. And in order to stop it, he had turn to the federally funded environmental agency that conservative Republicans like him love to hate.
* * *
Even by Alaskan standards, Bristol Bay, site of the proposed Pebble Mine, is unique, though not in a way that would make it particularly appealing to outsiders. In emails we exchanged after he ventured there this past July, reporter Rowan Jacobsen described the local scene:
A thing to understand about Bristol Bay is that it is not quaint. It’s not charming. It’s a handful of tiny fishing towns populated almost entirely by fishermen. Many of the skippers from “The Deadliest Catch” work the Bristol Bay salmon fishery in the summer, and they give you a pretty good sense of what the populace is like: rough, hard, Republican. Like most Alaskans, they tend to despise the federal government and still rue the day that Alaska became a state.
“So I was stunned,” Jacobsen wrote, “to hear so many of them calling on the EPA to protect them.”
The locals understand that what makes Bristol Bay special is below the surface. Yes, that means the 10.78 billion tons of minable ore that the Pebble Partnership wants to come in and exploit. But there are also the salmon – the resource that makes the region truly extraordinary. Here’s Jacobsen, again:
If you see a filet of wild Alaska salmon in your supermarket, it’s almost definitely sockeye, and it likely came from Bristol Bay. Bristol Bay accounts for nearly half the sockeye on earth. And it keeps getting better: this year, scientists expected a run of 20 million fish to return to Bristol Bay. They got 40 million. I think of it as the greatest supply of sustainable omega-3s on the planet.
How did it get this way? It’s because sockeye are different. They are the only species of salmon that spawn in lakes instead of streams. And they are very sensitive to water quality. So what they need is a diverse system of super-clean lakes that feed into a body of water with a robust food supply, so they can fatten up in the years they’re at sea before returning. Bristol Bay feeds into the Bering Sea, which is one of the richest and most productive bodies of water in the world. And the lake system in the headwaters above Bristol Bay is also unparalleled. I saw it all from the air. Lots of Alaska rivers climb quickly into the mountains and turn into streams, but the Bristol Bay watershed is not especially mountainous. Instead, you get these classic, massive systems of relatively flat tundra and lakes, some small, some among the largest in the country: sockeye paradise. Nowhere else in Alaska is like that. It’s a beautiful, strange, mesmerizing landscape.
Upstream swimmers in a downstream world, salmon are famous for never forgetting where they came from. After years spent fattening up at sea, they’ll return thousands of miles to where they first spawned. The fishermen who’ve staked their claims in Bristol Bay don’t need to seek out the salmon or steer them home. The salmon have it figured out; all that’s left for them to do is leave enough in the waters to ensure they keep coming back. It adds up to a $1.5 billion fishery that supports more than 14,000 jobs.How did it get this way? It’s because sockeye are different. They are the only species of salmon that spawn in lakes instead of streams. And they are very sensitive to water quality. So what they need is a diverse system of super-clean lakes that feed into a body of water with a robust food supply, so they can fatten up in the years they’re at sea before returning. Bristol Bay feeds into the Bering Sea, which is one of the richest and most productive bodies of water in the world. And the lake system in the headwaters above Bristol Bay is also unparalleled. I saw it all from the air. Lots of Alaska rivers climb quickly into the mountains and turn into streams, but the Bristol Bay watershed is not especially mountainous. Instead, you get these classic, massive systems of relatively flat tundra and lakes, some small, some among the largest in the country: sockeye paradise. Nowhere else in Alaska is like that. It’s a beautiful, strange, mesmerizing landscape.
But what if the salmon don’t come back? Back in 2010, Francis Lam asked that very question in Salon. It’s the thought that’s been on everyone’s mind since the Pebble Partnership announced its intentions to develop a mine larger than the area of Manhattan atop this precious habitat. Such an extreme level of development, experts say, would be certain to pollute those super-clean lakes in which the salmon thrive. And the stakes, were something to go wrong, are massive — a reminder that became all the more poignant last week when a “massive failure” at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine in central British Columbia dumped an estimated 1.3 billion gallons of contaminants into that region’s salmon streams.
The B.C. First Nation announced Thursday that it will be evicting the mining company from its territory because, as Neskonlith Chief Judy Wilson explained, ”the industry has proven at Mount Polley that they can’t regulate all of that.” The earthen dams that would be used at Pebble Mine are being designed by the same company behind those that failed at Mount Polley; Pebble Mine itself is about 10 times the size. Were a similar “failure” to occur in Bristol Bay, the outcome would be an unequivocal disaster.
Alaska’s Republican-led government, located about a thousand miles away in Juneau, disagrees. The state insists that the opportunities presented by Pebble Mine justify the risk to the fishing industry that already thrives in Bristol Bay. The state has openly thrown its weight behind the Pebble Partnership – even going so far as to try to join the industry in a lawsuit against the EPA’s interference. From the perspective of those living in Bristol Bay, the state is fighting hard against their interests, in ways that can feel extremely personal.
“The State of Alaska has a very distinct way of controlling information and opinions, and putting pressure on people,” Izzetta Chambers, who runs Naknek Family Fisheries, a small-scale seafood processor in the area, observed. At the time the idea of the mine was first floated, she was working in business development for the region. She was open-minded about the idea, but it quickly became clear to her that a large-scale mining operation would directly conflict with the interests of her clients, who were mostly tourist operators or small fish processors. Yet her boss told her in explicit terms that she had to come out in favor of the mine. When it became clear that she would do just the opposite, she recalls it quickly became a hostile work environment.
“There seems to be this vibe in the (right-leaning) press that this fight is some sort of mismatch, with the big, bad federal government and its national environmental nonprofit allies coming down on the little, independent mining consortium and the State of Alaska,” Jacobsen observed. “But it’s actually just the opposite.” Big Mining had come in with the full support of the state, leaving no room for opposition. Chambers recalls going to borough planning sessions and hearing planners say, “This is a done deal. These types of things are practically impossible to stop.” They tried to squash official opposition at the municipal level, she said. “They made it seem like you just have to take this.”
* * *
(contd)