EPA visit highlights problems with Pebble permitting process

We have some serious questions.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler are in Alaska this week, and Bristol Bay tribes and fishermen are decidedly not on the list of Alaskans whose meeting requests were granted. There are scheduled events on Tuesday in Anchorage and Wednesday in Soldotna with the Kenai River Sportfishing Association.

We are still scratching our heads as to why the EPA just reversed its own decision to use its authority to defend Bristol Bay — withdrawing its three-year, peer-reviewed study that found a mine even smaller than what Pebble proposes would irreversibly damage Bristol Bay and its renowned fishery. Instead, EPA administrators have favored allowing Pebble to continue to steamroll through its rushed, inadequate permitting process. Sen. Murkowski issued a press release applauding the agency’s decision to withdraw the protections Bristol Bay tribes and fishermen had asked for just weeks after multitudes of scientists, including those at the EPA, criticized the mine’s draft Environmental Impact Statement as grossly inadequate. (The Department of Interior said it was so inadequate it “precludes meaningful analysis.”) This is in spite of the fact that Sen. Murkowski has herself long promised never to allow the federal agencies to permit a project that will trade mining for fisheries in Bristol Bay. Remember, EPA is the one federal agency with the ability to protect salmon by stopping the major federal permit that the Trump administration is rushing through for Pebble Mine — an ability the agency just voluntarily surrendered.

Just last week, Sen. Sullivan was in Bristol Bay. In a KDLG radio interview, he emphasized, "The science, not politics, is what needs to drive the decision” on Pebble. But this week, he is hosting Administrator Wheeler — a political appointee, not a scientist — in a private sportfishing event with some of Alaska’s most powerful and most pro-Pebble individuals.

Wheeler, whose former lobbying firm did work for Pebble, claims to have recused himself from the issue. But documents show and scientists say that the EPA’s harsh criticism of Pebble mine’s draft Environmental Impact Statement was severely watered down by political appointees and EPA scientists’ recommendations on Bristol Bay have been “deleted” by high level politicians back in Washington, D.C. That’s just after it was revealed that EPA’s decision to withdraw the Clean Water Act protections that tribes and fishermen had requested came the day after Gov. Mike Dunleavy met with President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One. Dunleavy’s biggest campaign contributor was Kenai River Sportfishing Association board member Bob Penney, who is pro-Pebble. Former legislator Eldon Mulder is also on the KRSA board, and is Pebble’s highest-paid lobbyist here in Alaska. Even KRSA’s director, Ben Mohr, is a former Pebble mine employee and promoter.

The fisheries-related event that the senators are attending while they’re in town? The Kenai River Classic Roundtable, hosted by the Kenai River Sportfishing Association.

Smell a little fishy?

All this makes us doubt that Pebble mine is undergoing the “fair and rigorous” process Sen. Murkowski and other political leaders have promised. If our senators truly supported a “fair and rigorous” permitting process for Pebble mine, they would champion scientists’ assessments instead of allowing political appointees and officials to pull permitting strings behind a curtain.

After the EPA’s withdrawal of the only valid scientific analysis of the potential impacts of the Pebble mine on the Kvichak River, Nushagak River and other Bristol Bay river systems, the Environmental Impact Statement is the only major remaining hurdle for the proposed mine. That’s of massive concern, because the draft EIS was woefully inadequate, had major gaps, and was based on too much speculation and too little hard science — as many, many scientists and mine experts, both agency-affiliated and independent, pointed out in their comments.

The EPA’s recent decisions show that when it comes to EPA’s assessments about the risks of Pebble mine, it’s not the scientists who are calling the shots. It should be, and we ask that Sens. Murkowski and Sullivan not stand for anything less. The planet’s largest remaining and most pristine sockeye salmon run, as well as the people and jobs that depend on it, are too important to entrust to short-term, irresponsible political agendas.

Alexus Kwachka was raised in Fairbanks, where he held his first fishing job on the Yukon River. He currently fishes in Bristol Bay and around Kodiak, where he lives.

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