Alaska Environment raises support for Bristol Bay

From photographers and sportsmen to bears and caribou, everyone can appreciate unspoiled wilderness. But what happens when that wilderness becomes home a mine?

That’s the threat currently facing Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Home to one of the world’s strongest remaining salmon runs, the bay plays a crucial role in providing nutrition for whole ecosystems around it. A proposed project called Pebble Mine would use the bay’s headwaters as a dump site for dredge and fill materials, but Alaska Environment recently helped raise support for a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency that would protect the bay’s watershed under the Clean Water Act.

“A clean Bristol Bay forms an ecological cornerstone for southwest Alaska,” said Dyani Chapman, Alaska Environment’s state director. “Now it’s time for the EPA to finish the job and issue permanent protections for the Bristol Bay watershed.”

Alaska Environment supporters joined upwards of half a million Americans who voiced their support for protecting this ecological gem.

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Photo Credit: Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service via Flickr, public domain