Photo: USFWS

But if the proposed Pebble Mine is built, it could have devastating consequences for this wilderness paradise, according to a newly revised watershed assessment on large-scale mining in Bristol Bay by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—which considered 233,000 public comments, consulted with tribes, and received input from independent scientists and peer reviewers. The report finds that even in a best case scenario—with no leaks or failures—the massive mine would destroy up to 90 miles of salmon streams and up to 4,800 acres of wetlands, and produce acidic and toxic-laden waters.

As a result, local grizzlies, wolves, bald eagles, and other wildlife that consume salmon will all be impacted. So will Alaska Natives, who have relied on subsistence fishing for thousands of years. And so will the commercial fishery, which, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Alaska’s Institute for Social and Economic Research, provides 12,000 jobs and about $500 million annually in direct income to workers across the country.

All of this is at risk from Pebble Mine, the colossal gold and copper mine proposed at the headwaters of Bristol Bay that would generate up to 10 billion tons of toxic mine waste stored in massive earthen dams covering over 10 square miles. Even under the best conditions, it would be virtually impossible to keep the toxic waste from leaking into rivers and streams, putting salmon—which are highly sensitive to the slightest increases in certain metals like copper–at great risk.

And if the dams break, it would be absolutely devastating to the river and wildlife downstream. Just last month, a massive landslide at Bingham Canyon mine in Utah—which registered as a 5.1 magnitude earthquake  and engulfed tens of millions of dollars in mining equipment and infrastructure—was a preview of the disaster that could occur if Pebble Mine is built. Incredibly, Pebble Mine would be twice the size of Bingham Canyon mine and located in an active earthquake zone.

The EPA’s review provides more than enough information to know that Pebble Mine would pose enormous, irreversible harm to this critically important watershed, and the wildlife and people that depend on it. Yet, despite these risks and the overwhelming opposition to Pebble Mine, foreign mining corporations are charging full steam ahead.

Now is the time for the Obama administration to act. We only have until May 31^st to comment on these new findings and urge the EPA to use its power under the Clean Water Act to stop this disastrous project. If we don’t speak up now, Pebble Mine could devastate this wilderness paradise and the rich community of wildlife that calls it home.

Help protect salmon and grizzlies from toxic mining waste—send a message to the EPA today.

Sleeping brown bear

Photo by Flickr member tomblandford
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Grizzly bear wading through the Battle River in Alaska

 
Photo by Flickr member Jenny’s site
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Your Photo Could Be Here

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If you didn’t get a chance to see this fascinating special, WATCH IT HERE.

Bristol Bay has remained largely untouched by development–providing pristine habitat for the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, as well as healthy populations of grizzly bears, wolves, moose, caribou and waterfowl. In other words, it’s no place for an industrial mine.

Pebble mine would produce up to ten billion tons of toxic waste over its lifetime. Even tiny amounts of toxic waste can poison the salmon in Bristol Bay that grizzlies and other wildlife depend on. Photo: USFWS.

Urge the Environmental Protection Agency to stop Big Mining from using our waters as industrial waste dumps!

Mission Mountain Range - Flathead Indian Reservation; Photo copyright Colin Ruggiero

First tribally designated wilderness in the country is 30 years old!

You talk to any Montanan about the most beautiful, breathtaking view in the state, and most would put the Mission Mountains in the top 10. It is an amazing moment when you are driving north up Highway 93 and then crest Ravalli Hill  and see the Mission Mountains rise up from the valley floor into a vista so breathtaking that you wonder if it’s real.

Grizzly Bear (Photo by U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Germaine White, the information and education specialist for CSKT’s Natural Resources Department explained to the hundreds that gathered for the celebration that the vote was extremely courageous because that that time, the acreage of the wilderness was around a quarter of the Tribes land. And, with that designation, the Tribe voluntarily gave up any activity that could have generated revenue for the Tribe including logging and other development.

Hikers in the Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness Area

The Mission  Mountain Wilderness is just one of the reasons, the National Wildlife Federation recognized the CSKT’s with a National Conservation Award in the government category on May 17, 2012.

Congratulations CSKT from all of us at the National Wildlife Federation!

As William Blake said,

Yellowstone Grizzly Bears Still on Road to Recovery Despite Latest Twist in Delisting Saga

Nov 22, 2011 – Today, a federal appeals court ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for grizzlies in the Yellowstone region. The Court found that the USFWS developed solid criteria for managing bears once they were delisted, but that the agency had failed to justify delisting given concerns about a decline in an important food source for the animals. Warmer weather due to climate change allowed beetles to flourish and devastate whitebark pines that produce nuts the grizzlies rely on for food. The bears will be relisted as a threatened species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted the bears in 2007 once their populations began to grow. Because the Yellowstone grizzly numbers exceeded all recovery targets, the National Wildlife Federation and its affiliates in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming intervened on behalf of the USFWS in the litigation challenging the delisting decision.

A Chance for Media Redemption on Hackergate?

Nov 22, 2011 – Today another hacked batch of 5,000 emails purporting to be from the Climate Research Center at the University of East Anglia was leaked by unknown parties.  It’s old, discredited news. Let’s hope the media exercises due diligence and practices objective journalism instead of blindly reinforcing the climate skeptics’ distorted claims.

When a similar batch of emails was unloaded without permission in 2009, many in the media hastily reported some of the information as solid facts and did not bother to understand the information in its broader context.  As a result, the science was distorted, twisted and misrepresented, and a stream of sloppy reporting ensued and was repeated over and over all too often.  Some in the media joined the climate naysayers who tried to argue that the climate scientists had doctored scientific data to exaggerate the world’s climate crisis.  They tried to unravel the facts and upend the science.

And here are highlights from NWF in the News:

• Associated Press: Court says Yellowstone grizzlies still threatened
• Minnesota Public Radio: Push to keep invasives out driving force behind ballast water measures 
• Durango Herald: Report: Nature conservation is a ‘huge economic driver’

This weekend, Milo and I went walking in the Chugach State Park just outside of Anchorage.  We were on some well-travelled trails no more than 15 minutes from town with plenty of footprints and bike tire treads in the mud.

There was also bear scat.

Milo and the Bear Scat (Sounds like a children's book)

And bear tracks.

68-pound dog's paw next to bear track

Alaska has 98% of America’s brown bear population. There really isn’t much risk.  Bears aren’t looking for trouble.  You are more likely to get hit by a car driving to work then to get hurt by a bear.

A path through the spruce on the way to treeline in Chugach State Park

But it stirs the blood to know that there are wild things in the woods. You tend to pay a little more attention to the world, and to feel lucky to be a part of it. If  I hadn’t seen the bear sign, I might not have been paying enough attention to see the flock of ptarmigan in the spruce next to the trail five minutes later.

Wildlife of all kinds can help us notice the world, and it is one of the many good reasons to ensure that we pass on those experiences to the next generation by getting them outdoors and by protecting the wildlife we have.

Learn more about bears and  more ways to help connect your family to nature and the world. And tell us how the presence of wildlife, from bears to birds to armadillos (to choose an animal at random), enriches your world.

Share with us on Facebook or in the comments below!

An Alaska brown bear with a trio of cubs. Proposed mining in Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed jeopardizes the habitat of such animals.

The 40,000-square-mile Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska stretches across pristine tundra and wetlands crisscrossed with rivers that flow into the bay. Up to 40 million sockeye salmon return to this watershed each year—the world’s largest salmon run. In addition to sockeye, there are stunning runs of king salmon plus trophy rainbow trout and the full array of Alaskan wildlife, including grizzly bears, wolves, moose, caribou and waterfowl.

Here are eight things you probably don’t know about Bristol Bay:

1. Native People

For thousands of years, the Native people of Bristol Bay (Yup’ik-Eskimo, Aleut and Athabaskan) have subsisted on the bay’s natural resources. Salmon is the lifeblood of Native village economies and ways of life. In addition to salmon, Native communities in the bay area rely on berries, caribou, moose, marine mammals, ptarmigan, ducks, geese and many plants as their main sources of food. About 7,500 people live in the region, 66 percent of them Alaska Natives.

2. Visitor Attractions

Five national parks, wildlife refuges and designated wilderness areas lie within the Bristol Bay region along with a number of state parks and state wildlife protection areas. From hub communities, visitors can enjoy wildlife viewing, boating, rafting, fishing, hunting, traditional subsistence activities, air tours, hiking, camping, cannery tours, museum tours and historic sites.

3. The Importance of Fish

Commercial fishing and associated canneries have been the major industries in the area for years, accounting for nearly 75 percent of local jobs. Nearly a third of all Alaska’s salmon earnings come from Bristol Bay, which is home to rivers and streams that are as productive today as they were thousands of years ago. Sport anglers come from all over the world for that once-in-a-lifetime experience. In total, an estimated 37,000 fishing trips are taken yearly to Bristol Bay freshwater fisheries, contributing $60 million annually to the state.

4. Wildlife and Bristol Bay

The pristine lakes and rivers that empty into Bristol Bay support all five species of Pacific salmon—king, sockeye, silver, chum and pink—as well as rainbow trout, arctic char, grayling, northern pike, lake trout and Dolly Varden. The region also supports healthy populations of moose, sea otters, grizzly bears, black bears, seals, walruses, porcupines, river otters, beluga whales, orcas, caribou, wolves, bald eagles and one of only two known populations in the world of freshwater seals.

5. The Bad News

Plans for large-scale mineral development in the headwaters of the bay’s best wild salmon rivers—such as the proposed gold- and copper-mining development called Pebble Mine—jeopardize Bristol Bay’s wilderness qualities.

6. How Pebble Mine Threatens Wildlife

Foreign mining companies are eyeing gold and copper deposits under Bristol Bay’s unique watershed. If built, Pebble Mine, located in an unstable seismic zone prone to frequent earthquakes, would be the largest open-pit mine in North America, up to 2 miles wide. It would require:

• massive earthen dams to contain lakes of toxic mine waste t that could leak into surface waters and groundwater;
• a 100-mile-long road into wilderness habitat;
• a major new fossil-fuel power plant that would generate enough power to supply the city of Anchorage;
• and nearly 35 billion gallons of water each year, critically reducing flow to multiple salmon rivers.

Toxic by-products are an inevitable result of such open pit mines, putting salmon, which are highly sensitive to the slightest increases in certain metals such as copper, at great risk.

7. More Development on Public Lands in Bristol Bay

The proposed Pebble Mine is not the only threat to Bristol Bay wilderness, wildlife, and economics. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which administers federal public land in the area, has recommended opening more than 1 million acres of vital fish and wildlife habitat in the Bristol Bay watershed to future hard-rock mines like Pebble. These public, wild lands are integral to the health of Bristol Bay’s salmon-supporting waters. BLM must be persuaded to pursue a future for the region that supports the renewable natural resources of Bristol Bay over the short-term gains of mineral extraction.

8. What NWF Is Doing to Protect Bristol Bay

As wild salmon runs disappear across the planet, Bristol Bay remains a place of international significance, providing a refuge for salmon and the people and wildlife that depend on them. NWF is working with a growing coalition to stop the Pebble Mine and safeguard the irreplaceable resources of Bristol Bay. Native communities, sport and commercial anglers, conservation groups, and NWF’s Alaska affiliate—the Renewable Resources Coalition—are all working together toward this common vision:

• Prevent mining on Bristol Bay’s pristine federal lands and waters.
• Close loopholes in the Clean Water Act to ensure hardrock mines like Pebble are not permitted unless they can protect clean water.
• Support NWF’s Alaska affiliate, Renewable Resources Coalition, in the campaign to stop Pebble Mine and other hardrock-mining development on state lands.

How You Can Help

The pure waters and healthy habitats on which the grizzly bears of Alaska’s Bristol Bay depend could be devastated if mining interests get their way. Please donate today to protect wildlife in Bristol Bay and across America.

TAKE ACTION: Urge the Environmental Protection Agency to protect the wildlife of Bristol Bay against toxic mining.>>

More information

• Alaska Department of Fish and Game
• Our Bristol Bay
• Masterworks of Yupik Science and Survival
• Economic Significance of Sport Fishing in Alaska

A Bear and a Fisherman Both Enjoy Bristol Bay Fishing - photo credit Jim Wagner

Yesterday, 363 sport groups and businesses sent a letter to Lisa Jackson, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, asking her to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay region and its world class fishing and hunting from the proposed Pebble Mine. National Wildlife Federation and some of its state affiliates were a part of that letter.

We thanked Administrator Jackson for beginning a scientific assessment of the area’s watershed to determine if large-scale mining is compatible with the fish and wildlife of the region.  But the evidence is already clear–putting a mine that will generate billions of tons of toxic waste rock in the headwaters of the Bristol Bay region will put the entire region’s ecosystem at risk.  So the letter urges Adminstrator Jackson to veto the project NOW!