The Environmental Protection Agency used the Clean Water Act on Monday to veto a proposed copper and gold mining project near Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Not only does the veto apply to the Pebble mine project, which would have dug into the path of the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, it prevents any similar developments from moving forward in the watershed.
“While there are changes in nuance at the various stages, it has been clear for some time that EPA was determined to do something to safeguard the national treasure that is the Bristol Bay Fishery,” said Western Director and Senior Attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council Joel Reynolds, who was involved in the fight against the Pebble mine.
“It’s the wrong place for any large-scale mining project,” he said.
Plans for the mine date back to the early 2000s, when the California-based company Pebble LP proposed a massive, open-pit mine roughly 200 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska. Bristol Bay and its watershed sit on huge deposits of gold and copper. According to P... Read more
