Go Blue! Seafood Sustainability

To:  The United States Environmental Protection Agency

RE:  Protecting the Bristol Bay Watershed in Alaska

Sea Port supports the recent Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to protect the Bristol Bay watershed in Alaska from the activities of the proposed open pit Pebble Mine.

Last year Sea Port submitted comments urging the EPA to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to prohibit mining activities in this watershed to protect its unique and abundant natural salmon runs.  We are pleased that the EPA subsequently used the best available science to conclude that the negative economic, environmental, and social impacts of large-scale open pit mining activities far outweigh any benefits.  We applaud the EPA’s conclusion that the abundant renewable fishery resources stemming from the pristine productive capacity of the Bristol Bay watershed accrue much greater long-term benefits for both present and future generations of Alaskans and our nation.

While Sea Port concurs with the EPA’s assessment, we would like to augment it by voicing our concerns that there may be negative unintended consequences that could occur internationally if major mining activities are allowed to proceed in the Bristol Bay watershed:

• Alaska and our national fishery management practices are currently internationally recognized as the best for sustainably managing wild fishery stocks.  Allowing the Pebble mining activities could severely tarnish this reputation and undermine our credibility in this regard.

• Allowing the Pebble Mine could send the message to the world that the negative impacts due to nonrenewable mineral extraction are preferable over safeguarding renewable wild fisheries for future generations.

• Developing nations with vast mineral and wild fishery resources may conclude that if Alaska and the United States can choose very lucrative but short-term mining benefits over the long-term benefits of productive wild food resources, then it must be acceptable for them to do likewise.

For years, both Alaska and our nation, through the efforts of NOAA, have actively promoted and taught the best responsible fishery management practices to the rest of the world.  Let us not now be guilty of that old adage, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Sea Port respectfully requests that the EPA remain resolute and confident in their conclusion that large-scale mining activities are not appropriate in the Bristol Bay watershed of Alaska.  U.S. Senator Mark Begich from Alaska succinctly expresses our viewpoint, “Wrong mine, wrong place, too big.”

Sincerely yours,

David Glaubke, Directory of Sustainability Initiatives

Sea Port Products Corporation