EPA: Bristol Bay mining destructive

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its long-awaited report on the potential impacts of large-scale gold and copper mining on the Bristol Bay watershed in western Alaska.

Titled “An Assessment of Potential Mining Impacts on Salmon Ecosystems of Bristol Bay, Alaska,” the report found that “[a] large-scale mining operation in Alaska’s Bristol Bay would destroy a significant portion of the watershed, a pristine fishery that supports nearly half the world’s sockeye salmon and dozens of Native villages that have relied on fishing for thousands of years,” according to The Washington Post.

The EPA’s report—which is a blow to the Northern Dynasty Mining company’s aim to dig its massive and controversial Pebble Mine, for which it has not yet filed a permit—was compiled over three years’ time at the request of tribes in the area.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Northern Dynasty and Republican supporters of the proposed mine described the report as “biased, premature and bad for business.”