YIPEE! HUGE NEWS!

Anglo American pulls out of  Pebble Mine!  What does that mean?  Basically, Anglo American,  the company with the deep pockets is bailing out of the project because the proposed mine is "too risky".   Ya think?  You think putting the world's largest open pit mine at the headwaters of the world's largest wild salmon run is too risky?  I'm glad they finally see it my way.  And the way of 654,000 other folks who signed the EPA comment petition to protect the Bristol Bay Watershed. (http://www.savebristolbay.org/blog/sportsmen-to-epa-stop-pebble). 

Anyway, you can read all about it right here: http://www.adn.com/2013/09/16/3077905/anglo-american-pulls-out-of-alaskas.html or here: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130916/anglo-american-withdraws-pebble-mine-project.

Looks like if enough of us little folk speak loud enough, we can make a difference!  Good job everyone who helped make a stink about all this!  Lets just hope this is the beginning of the end. And what would I have to say to Pebble Mine?  Just what the skipper of the Bristol Bay gillnetter Licka-D-Split would say, "Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you".

Fisher Poets against Pebble Mine

This week, I thought I would shake things up a bit and invite John Copp here on PickFish Tales to bend your ear about Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay Alaska.  John is a fellow Fisher Poet and commercial fisherman who fished Bristol Bay, Alaska for alotta years.  And he's got something to say about the proposed mine. 

Bill Carter author of Boom, Bust, Boom and John Copp

 photo by Daily Astorian

Visualize a giant meteor crashing to earth. It digs a hole big enough to be seen from outer space. It
generates ten billion tons of material so toxic that it destroys every living thing in a ten square mile radius,not just today, but for the next thousand years. No, this isn't a science fiction movie. It's Pebble Mine. If allowed to be built, say goodbye to the last great wild fishery left, Bristol Bay, Alaska.

A highlight of the 2013 Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon, was a Pebble Mine panel. Panelists included an environmental attorney, fisheries biologists from the University of Washington and Oregon State University, an historian with a social conscience, a successful author who illustrated the dangers from copper mines in his recent book (Boom, Bust, Boom), and two politically active young fishermen.The panel provided fact-based arguments, a solid understanding of the threat to the fisheries, and a clear grasp of how existing law can be applied. The room was packed, and the audience was keenly interested and full of important questions. Most importantly, the panel gave hope that we can save Bristol Bay.

panel discussion  photo by Daily Astorian

Economics alone justifies saving the Bay. For instance, Oregon's fifty or so Bristol Bay salmon
fishermen (and the hundreds of Oregonians who work for them) bring home over $10 million dollars each season. That doesn't include revenue from crab, herring, and guiding sport fishermen. Fishermen from Alaska, California, and Washington earn far more. Panelists agreed on a key point: large scale open-pit mining CAN NOT COEXIST with wild fisheries. The reason that Bristol Bay is so bountiful is water. Clear, pure water, running wild and free. Pebble's infrastructure alone will massively damage the water. Not only will it use massive amounts, it will insert toxins throughout the ecosystem. Study after study has shown the negative impact of toxic metals and acids on salmon biology. It doesn't take much.

Saving Bristol Bay depends on the White House supporting the scientific assessment that the EPA has
done on Bristol Bay. Pressure exerted by Congress and the Senate on the White House will be key. That in turn will depend up pressure exerted by individual citizens on their State Representatives. The miners have deep pockets and are lobbying politicians day and night. Time is running act. If you, dear reader, care two cents about saving Bristol Bay, TAKE ACTION. Contact your Representatives, President Obama, and the EPA. Donate a few bucks to groups leading the fight against Pebble, including Natural Resource Defense Council, Trout Unlimited, and Fishermen for Bristol Bay. 
We still can win! -John Copp (johndcopp@gmail.com)

More information about the panelist can be found in the The Daily Astorian article that came out Tuesday, February 26th: http://www.dailyastorian.com/free/pebble-mine-opponents-gather-during-fisherpoets-event/article_24334862-8049-11e2-bb1b-0019bb2963f4.html.  They even got a photo of yours truly at Clemente's Restaurant, who is also against the mine.

me at Clemente's photo by Daily Astorian

As John stated, TAKE ACTION!  Contact your Representatives, President Obama, and the EPA. Donate to groups leading the fight against Pebble Mine, including Natural Resource Defense Council, (http://www.nrdc.org/) Trout Unlimited, ( http://www.tu.org/),  Fishermen for Bristol Bay (http://fishermenforbristolbay.org/), and Stop Pebble Mine (http://www.stoppebblemine.org/).

Save our SALMON and say NO to Pebble Mine

Coffee with Murkowski, part II

This week’s blog is riding in on the shirt tales, or I guess I should say the fish tales, of last week’s blog.    It’s the story of how I ended up meeting with Senator Murkowski in Washington D.C.

As some of you may know, I’ve spent my winter sailing down the east coast through the Intracoastal Water Ways (ICW), around the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas, a set of small keys approximately 70 miles west of Key West.   My fishing season is approaching so I wasn’t able to sail the boat back north with Vince where it will be stored in Maryland until next fall.   I needed a faster than 7 knots mode of transportation to get to Ohio, visit family then continue on to Alaska.  So we rented a car.

Vince, who did the road trip with me then went back to his boat, needed to stop off in North Carolina and southern Maryland.  I was looking at a map of America, figuring our route from Florida to Ohio via those states and lo and behold, Washington D.C. is right on the way.   I figured, what the hay?  I’ll see if I can swing in and meet with my Senators about Pebble Mine.  I went to each of their websites, Begich and Murkowski and saw that each had a “Coffee with the Senator”. I RSVP’ed on line, it was that easy.

Now, being that I’ve been on a sailboat all winter, I didn’t really have the kind of clothes needed to meet with a Senator.  Even my best flip-flops were a bit ragged.  So we stopped at a few outlet malls along the way.  I gathered up what I thought was a conservative outfit.  Turns out, I missed the mark completely, but so did most the other Alaskans there.  Anyway, we pull into D.C. the afternoon before my morning meeting.  We were going to settle into the hotel, then enjoy the warm evening by walking into historic Georgetown for dinner.  Opening up the trunk of the car to grab my outfit, complete with new shoes, I picked up the box with my new shoes in them and what do I see?   Mouse pooh!  The tissue paper was all gone and there was mouse poop in the box.   Luckily, the shoes were not damaged.  But, oh no!  My new sweater!  I tear into that bag and find my sweater, which was also wrapped in tissue paper.  Again, the paper was gone. I feared the worse.  What if a mouse ate a whole in my new sweater that I got at the J. Crew outlet for 35% off?  I’m in the middle of D.C.   There are no outlet malls here. Where am I going to get a new outfit on this short notice?   Everyone knows you can never find what you are looking for when there is a time crunch. Especially not on sale!  How much will that cost.  Panic was setting in as I yanked the sweater out of the bag and inspected it.  Schew.  Only the paper was gone, the sweater was fine.

Long story short, instead of our nice romantic evening in Georgetown we had what looked like a yard sale in the parking lot of the hotel as we pulled everything out of the trunk, pulled every piece of clothing out its bags.  And at that point in time, I couldn’t help but wonder why I can’t have a normal life.

We never did find the mouse, only his nest and his trail of mouse pooh in bags on the back seat.  I called the rental car company to switch out the car.  They said they would bring me something similar to the gas sipping Nissan I was driving.  They showed up with a Ford F150 4x4 four-door that got 14 miles to the gallon, but that’s another story.

Anywho, that next morning I took the subway all by myself with my new outfit that didn’t have mouse holes in it to the Senate building and didn’t even get lost, much.  I walk into Senator Murkowski’s office and, of course, there is Jim, a guy I know from Anchorage.   He was an old hat at this and showed me the ropes. I started chatting with Stefanie, the fisheries gal and found out we know some of the same folks from Petersburg.  Then I met with the Senator and we chit-chatted about how much snow Cordova got over the winter, our mutual love of Copper River Fleece (www.copperriverfleece.com) and that both of us own too many jackets.  She told me how her sons work on tenders in the summer.    Then I slipped in my concerns about Pebble.  She listened.  And that is, as they say, the rest of the story.

Coffee with Murkowski

We pulla da nets, to maka da mon, to buya da bread, to getta da stren’, to pulla da nets
--Lament of a Bristol Bay fisherman

Earlier this week I went to Washington D.C.   I wanted to meet with one of Senators, Lisa Murkowski and let her know how this fisherman feels about the Proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska. 

Senator Lisa Murkowski and me

Bristol Bay is an American national treasure.  It is nestled in southwestern Alaska, near Lake Iliamna and Lake Clark.  It is 250 miles long and180 miles wide at its mouth with a number of rivers flowing into the bay, including the Naknek, Kvichak, Egegik, Ugashik, Nushagak, Wood, and Togiak.   It is known as the “salmon capitol of the world” with an extremely productive marine ecosystem that maintains the largest wild salmon run in the world.  Up to 44 million salmon return annually to Bristol Bay, making it Alaska’s richest commercial fishery, bringing in nearly one-third of all of Alaska’s salmon harvest earnings.   The fishery is a $350 million dollar industry that supports over 12,000 jobs and is celebrating it’s 125^th season this year.

In addition to a robust and sustainable sockeye and Chinook salmon run, Bristol Bay is one of the world’s most pristine naturally wild areas with magnificent wildlife, scenery, and marine ecosystems, a world-class refuge.  It’s a birder’s paradise, a hunter’s delight, and a sport fishermen’s dream.   It’s a sanctuary for brown bear, moose, caribou, millions of  waterfowl, seabirds, shorebirds, walruses, seals, fish and sixteen different species of whales.

The Pebble deposit is a massive, low-grade deposit of gold, copper and molybdenum (which is often used in high strength steel alloy) located at the headwaters of the Kvichak and Nushagak Rivers, two rivers that flow into Bristol Bay.  If built, Pebble would be one of the largest open pit mines in the world, some 3 ½ miles wide.   Pebble proposes using tailings dams to permanently store the estimated 10 billion tons of mining waste that is material that is too toxic to be released back into the environment.   These tailings dams would cover 10 square miles and the tallest will be nearly the height of the Empire State building.  Tailings dams are known as the Achilles Heel of the mining industry and fail at a rate of 2 a year around the world since 1919 with the result of loss of life and irreversible pollution.  Anyone else think storing millions of tons of toxic waste permanently behind a wall of dirt at the mouth waters of the largest salmon run in the world a bad idea?  As if that isn’t enough, did I mention that Alaska is an active earthquake area averaging 5,000 quakes annually.  Moreover, did I mention that Pebble is owned by a Chinese company and the 2^nd largest mining company in the world?

Pissed off yet?  I know I am.

So far there are several groups opposed to Pebble and our numbers are growing.   On board are Trout Unlimited, Alaska Coalition, Renewable Resources Foundation, Save Bristol Bay, and Fishermen for Bristol , to name a few.  There are 77 commercial fishing organizations from Alaska to Maine currently oppose Pebble Mine.  However, this is still a David against Goliath fight.   So what are we going to do about it? 

From what I gathered by visiting with Senator Lisa Murkowski and her staff, Pebble will and is proceeding with the permit process.  To preemptively veto that would result in a law suits and court battles that would blow up in all of our pretty little faces.  Pebble has some deep pockets.  Until it is time for public comment, which may not be until next year,  there are a handful of things we can do now. 

1.     Spread the word.  Many folks have never even heard about Bristol Bay or it’s threats.  Tell everyone you know.  Send them to one of these sites to keep tabs on what is happening. 

http://www.aifma.org/
http://www.alaskacoalition.org/about-us/
http://www.thebristolbaytimes.com/          
http://fishermenforbristolbay.org/
http://www.nrdc.org/
http://www.renewableresourcesfoundation.org/
http://www.savebristolbay.org/
http://www.trustees.org/

2.     A couple of suggestions were made to me by Murkowski’s staff members.  One was to send letters to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to urge the Obama administration to protect Bristol Bay by initiating a Clear Water Act 404 (c).  The EPA had the authority to safeguard the valuable habitat of Bristol Bay watershed.  

      http://aswm.org/wetlands-law/cwa-guidance

3.     Weed through Pebble’s research to find erroneous data and write to my legislation when I find some.   Evidently, there are about 24, 000 pages of research to go through.  OK, I’ll take the first 12,000 pages, who wants to take the second half?  The data can be found at the bottom of the page here under documents: http://www.pebblepartnership.com/environment/acts.

Seriously, who’s on board to help  me sift through this?

In the mean time, drop a line here and let me know what ideas or suggestions you have to help stop this monstrosity from happening. 

I’m out.