Alaskans had come out overwhelmingly against the measure, a rare example of consensus in a proudly opinionated state. Even the Republican senator Ted Stevens, a staunch supporter of mines, said that this was “the wrong mine in the wrong place.” Investors pulled out and stock prices of Northern Dynasty fell. Slowly, bumper stickers around town denouncing the mine disappeared.
Then Donald Trump, a man in love with all things gold, came along.
On May 1, Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the E.P.A., met with Tom Collier, the head of the Pebble Mine project, for breakfast. Later that same morning, Mr. Pruitt ordered the E.P.A. regulations scrapped, telling the company it could proceed with permitting. And like that, the mine was back in play.
Northern Dynasty Minerals originally proposed detonating millions of pounds of explosives to open a pit the size of Seattle, which would make Pebble Mine the largest manufactured hole in the world. This time around, the company speaks of a smaller mine. But once drilling begins, permits are easily amended. What mine in the history of the world has ever left gold in the ground? The company also proposes that the mine’s toxic wastewater be kept in a reservoir protected by an earthen dam — in one of North America’s most active earthquake zones.
All this bodes ill for salmon. In the continental United States, Atlantic salmon, once teeming in New England and Canada, have all but disappeared, and are now considered an endangered species. In 2015 fish biologists went into a tizzy after a mere handful of salmon set up nests in the Connecticut River.
On the West Coast, the Columbia River, known for its king salmon, and the Snake River in Idaho — where in the 19th century, salmon were so copious that locals had to beat them off with a stick before their horses would cross — have lost wild salmon because of dams and agricultural development. In the Puget Sound and in the San Francisco Bay, the same thing has happened.
Outside the United States the picture is no less bleak. That water mill that van Gogh painted so beautifully? One of the reasons the Netherlands lost its salmon. The trendy Canal S.-Martin in Paris? It was once the Ourcq River, a tributary of the Marne River — which, like the Seine, hosted abundant salmon runs. Power plants in Denmark and fish farms in Norway have disrupted wild stocks. In Scotland, Ireland, Canada — the list continues.
Alaska has remained the exception. Written into our state Constitution is a mandate to maintain a sustainable fishery, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has done well by it. We have outlawed fish farms and closely monitor escapement — the number of fish that make it back to their home streams to spawn. This conservative approach has led to bumper salmon runs in Bristol Bay, where, since 1884, the total cumulative catch in the area has been two billion fish. It took 95 years to catch the first billion, and just 38 years to catch the second. This year was record-breaking for sockeye returns.
Meanwhile, fishing and tourism combine to sustain some 14,000 jobs in the area. Northern Dynasty says Pebble Mine will create 1,000. If making America great again means bringing back jobs, then Bristol Bay is already doing just fine.
In Alaska, salmon give us food and work. But they also give us something harder to quantify. We welcome the fish each summer as they build their nests at headwaters. We breathe in their scent as they decay along the riverbanks. They permeate our lives. As they say on the island, the fish are in the trees.
My daughters, girls built of salmon.
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