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Rick Delkittie is vice president of the tribal council in the village of Nondalton, which lies about 16 miles to the east of the proposed mine site.
“I understand we need mines,” he says. But “everything put together comes apart — especially man-made stuff.”
Even people far downstream are worried that an accident at the mine could destroy the salmon fishery. “It’s sitting in the heart of all these drainages,” says Molly Chythlook, in Dillingham. “If there’s any spills, it’s going to be devastating for this region.”
Last fall, opponents of the Pebble mine put a ballot initiative before Alaska voters that was intended to tighten the water-quality standards the mine would have to meet. The Clean Water Initiative was defeated 57 percent to 43 percent.
Today, state regulators vow that when the mine-permitting process begins, it will be just as thorough as if the clean-water measure had passed. “We would never permit a project that we thought would endanger the whole fishery. We would say no to it before taking that risk,” says Ed Fogels. “No one here wants to destroy the Bristol Bay fishery or take even a remote chance that that might happen.”
Clearly assessing those risks will be crucial. That’s why the Conservancy has put a hold on its easement and habitat-protection projects and is now focusing on establishing scientific baselines against which the project can be evaluated.
“To build this mine in this place, you would have to take out salmon habitat,” Troll says. “What concerns me is that we don’t have a good understanding of how that habitat works — particularly the connections between groundwater, lakes and rivers.” The Pebble Partnership has pledged that the mine will cause “no net loss” of salmon and that the company will mitigate for the salmon habitat it does destroy. But the baseline data against which such losses would be measured is scant.
“We know what salmon in this area means to the world,” says Troll. “So we must clearly assess whether a mine in this area can meet the highest standards for protecting salmon, or whether the risk of development is simply too high.”
That’s what brought Woody’s team here to do the stream survey. This year the Conservancy will also partner with several other groups to establish water-quality baselines.
Woody stresses that the risks are high. “You’re talking about the biggest sockeye salmon factory on the whole planet,” she says. The Pebble mine would be “a great big experiment. And is Bristol Bay really the place you want to experiment?”
An accident here, she says, could not only devastate the local environment and livelihoods but also wipe out a crucial pool of salmon diversity. “A diverse salmon-stock portfolio helps insure future salmon returns,” Woody says. “If you wipe out the genetic diversity in this region, those may be the very genes that are able to adapt to climate change.”
After a long day of surveying, the biologists cram themselves around one of the cookhouse tables at Rainbow King Lodge, a map spread out before them. Woody colors in the stretches of stream that her team has spent the week surveying — more than 30 miles’ worth in all.
“We’ve found fish more places than not,” she says. “There’s fish just about everywhere we’ve looked” — including in streams that would disappear under tailings piles.
As they talk, a slightly inebriated woman wanders over to watch. Woody ropes her into the conversation and starts explaining what her team has been up to.
“Cool,” the woman says with a rough growl of a voice, cutting Woody off midexplanation.
Woody starts in again: “We’re just trying to show …”
But for the first time in a week, she can’t get a word in edgewise as the woman finishes her sentence for her: “They’re everywhere.”
The woman cracks her own triumphant grin and growls, “It all counts.”
Woody turns to the rest of the team and beams.
Nature picture credits: Photo © Bridget Besaw
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