ACT NOW to Urge the Obama Administration to Protect the World’s Richest Salmon Fishery.
A globally important fishery.
Alaska’s Bristol Bay Watershed is one of the most productive salmon ecosystems on Earth. It supports the world’s largest remaining wild sockeye salmon fishery, with tens of millions of salmon surging upstream to spawn each and very year.
Declared open to mining by the Bush administration.
Despite the importance of the fishery, and the many communities and businesses who depend upon it, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to open over one million acres of federal land in the Bristol Bay Watershed to mining.
Under the Bush Administration, the BLM issued a decision which did not recommend protective designations for Bristol Bay lands. Instead, the BLM selected Alternative D, which opens over 99% of the planning area to mineral development.
In a situation where mining almost always pollutes water.
A survey of major mining operations permitted over the past 40 years shows that — in areas similar to the Bristol Bay watershed where the mine would be close to surface and ground water— they polluted nearby water resources 85% of the time.