The [US president’s] administration on Friday [24 July 2020] said an open-pit copper, gold, and molybdenum mine on the doorstep of Lake Clark National Park and across from Katmai National Park in Alaska would not harm the fisheries of Bristol Bay, a decision quickly denounced
[…]. The setting is an environmental and cultural wonderland. The proposed
Pebble Mine would lie at the headwaters of two of the largest
tributaries of Bristol Bay, and is directly between Lake Clark National
Park and Preserve and Katmai National Park and Preserve. […]
Bristol Bay supports the largest sockeye salmon fishery on Earth.
[…]
Into this setting the mine’s proponent, Northern Dynasty Minerals, wants
to build its mine along with “an 82-mile road, pipeline and utilities
corridor to a permanent, year-round port facility on Cook Inlet,
a lightering location in Iniskin Bay, a 164-mile natural gas pipeline
from existing energy infrastructure on the Kenai Peninsula to the Pebble
mine site, a 270 MW natural gas-fired power plant at the mine site and
smaller power generation facility at the port site.”
[…]
On Friday [24 July 2020], the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its final environmental impact statement
on the project, stating […] that the project with its 20-year life could move forward […]. Officials at Northern Dynasty, a British Columbia-based company, applauded the findings. “We’re ecstatic to reach this major milestone in the advancement of
the Pebble Project – a modern mineral development proposal that has the
potential to become one of the most significant metals producers in the
United States […],”
said Northern Dynasty President & CEO R** T*******. [Text excerpt from:
Kurt Repanshek. “
Trump Administration Pushing Through Pebble Mine Approval.” National Parks Traveler. 24 July 2020.]
Map, photo, and captions from: Kurt Repanshek. “
Trump Administration Pushing Through Pebble Mine Approval.” National Parks Traveler. 24 July 2020.
——-
Those from Bristol Bay who believe the mine is an existential risk to
their livelihood and culture have vowed to continue fighting for however
long it takes. “There are some places that really shouldn’t be mined,
and a place that has the world’s most prolific sockeye salmon fishery is
one of those places,” said Dan Cheyette, a spokesman for the Bristol
Bay Native Corporation. “The problem is that the people of Bristol Bay
have to live with the consequences of this mine forever.”
[Text excerpt from: Aaron Ernst, for PBS/Frontline, May 2020.]
From The Seattle Times:
——–
From November 2020:
In its record of decision on the long-fought industrial gold and
copper mining project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited “Section
404 of the Clean Water Act and Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors
Act,” the Anchorage Daily News reported. […]
World Wildlife Fund previously released a video explaining “why the
proposed mine doesn’t stand up to a fact check.” The group described
Bristol Bay as “the lifeblood that sustains every species calling the
region home,” including harbor seals, hundreds of bird species, and
brown bear. The watershed is also critically important to tribes and the
salmon upon which they’ve relied for millennium. Bristol Bay also hosts
the planet’s most productive salmon fishery.
[…] The administration’s rejection follows the September release
of secret recordings between Tom Collier, CEO of Pebble Limited
Partnership, and Ronald Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty
Minerals, which owns Pebble, that revealed the goal was not a 20-year
project the 20-year operation publicly promised by the developers, but
instead to create a project of “unstoppable” growth […].
The executives instead were looking at “unstoppable” growth and a timeline of possibly 200 years. […] “The credit for this
victory belongs not to any politician but to Alaskans and Bristol Bay’s
Indigenous peoples […].” [Text excerpt from: Andrea Germanos. “Pebble Mine Denied Permit in Victory for Tribes, Waterways and Planet.” EcoWatch. 27 November 2020.]
Wanted to post this here because I saw a video that seemed to be inspired by this one earlier. While the newer (I’m assuming it is newer) video is still educational, I feel that this video is a great explanation of how the wolves of Yellowstone have impacted their environment.
On this day, 26 November 1883, the formerly enslaved woman and pioneering feminist, Black emancipationist and poet Sojourner Truth died in Michigan aged 86. She was born into slavery in a Dutch-speaking community in New York, and later gave birth to five children. She escaped in 1827, and with the support of an abolitionist family, successfully sued for the return of one of her sons who had been illegally sold in Alabama. After moving to New York City she became a charismatic preacher, helping enslaved people escape and advocating for abolitionism, and for women’s rights, including women’s suffrage. During the civil war Truth assisted the Union side, and after the war she helped people formerly enslaved in the South build new lives, often as wage workers. Truth remained active until the end of her long life, spending time in her later years campaigning for land redistribution to formally enslaved people – which was famously promised as “40 acres and a mule”, but was never delivered. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1593347900850354/?type=3
