Monday, July 1 at midnight is the last chance to provide public comment on the Trump administration's U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental impact statement on a proposed mine that could kill off the nation's most productive wild salmon fishery, located in Alaska.
Even Trump's former EPA administrator, the disgraced Scott Pruitt, opposed allowing the proposal to go forward. "It is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there," he wrote in January 2018. "Until we know the full extent of that risk, those natural resources and world-class fisheries deserve the utmost protection." The United Tribes of Bristol, representing 15 tribes in the area, blasted the Army Corps' EIS as "completely inadequate," and that it "ignores the many valid concerns about the devastating impacts this project will bring." It was also denounced by the more than 8,000 scientists and researchers of the American Fisheries Society, whose public comment said that the evaluation "fails to meet basic standards of scientific rigor."
Tribes, fishermen, Bristol Bay residents, and concerned Alaskans have sent an "SOS" to Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski for her assistance in killing the proposal.
"We hope the Senator understands and takes seriously this message of distress from Bristol Bay fisherman," says Dillingham gillnet captain Katherine Carscallen. "It's clear that the Army Corps and this administration are determined to permit the Pebble Mine, science and due process be damned. The Pebble DEIS is fatally flawed and the process has been corrupted by the millions of dollars spent by Pebble on DC lobbyists. It needs to be halted and started over. This is not another well intentioned rally, this is a distress call from those of us who have the most to lose if Pebble were built. It is our sincere hope the Senator hears and sees us and chooses to be the leader we need, when we need her the most."
Thus far, Murkowski has only gone on record as "reserving judgement about the Pebble mine," and says she is "closely following the permitting process to determine whether it can avoid harming Bristol Bay’s world-class fishery to say whether she'll support or oppose the proposed mine."