UNITED STATES: World’s biggest salmon fishery under threat
this year was poor for other Alaskan fisheries — the overall commercial harvest was some 30% below forecast, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) said — it proved recordsetting for Bristol Bay: here the sockeye salmon run hit 62.3 million, the largest since recordkeeping began in 1893.
Boats landed about 41 million fish, the ADFG said, the secondlargest harvest on record.
‘‘The fishing this season in Bristol Bay was historic,’’ fisherman Michael Jackson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from his boat at the Fishermen’s Fall Festival in Seattle.
Jackson, who lives in Bellingham, Washington, has fished Bristol Bay for 35 years.
‘‘It’s like Burning Man for salmon fishing. You’ll have days, sometimes tides, of really good fishing, but we were having weeks of really good fishing.’’
Environmental group Trout Unlimited said research published in 2013 had shown the value of Bristol Bay’s fishery was $US1.5 billion, after factoring in processing and other activities, and supported nearly 10,000 jobs.
Some scientists have attributed this year’s lower overall salmon run to recent unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures.
‘‘In this changing world, [Bristol Bay] is the last, best place for salmon [on Earth],’’ Flynn said from his home on Lopez Island, Washington. mining.
The Pebble Limited Partnership, led by Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd, in December submitted an application to the US Army Corps of Engineers for a wetlandsfill permit, a key authorisation required under the Clean Water Act.
The partnership’s CEO, Tom Collier, said in a statement at the time it was confident the mine would ‘‘secure development permits from federal, state and local regulatory agencies’’.
‘‘[And] we are confident it will coexist with the worldclass fisheries of Bristol Bay,’’ he said.
Fishermen who work around the clock during the frenzied summer months disagree that roads and slurries for an openpit mine will not affect the Bristol Bay watershed salmonspawning habitat.
‘‘Just the building of the infrastructure itself will irrevocably change the region that is currently an intact ecosystem and is therefore very resilient to climatic change,’’ Flynn said.
The mine’s backers believe fears of destroying the salmon run are overblown given the size of the watershed, which encompasses 103,600sq km and eight river systems.
‘‘There is a misperception out there that we are at the headwaters of the one and only river in all of Bristol Bay,’’ Pebble partnership spokesman Mike Heatwole said.
‘‘It is our view that our science and technical information will demonstrate we can responsibly develop a mine at Pebble.’’
Bristol Bay fishermen point to the huge miningwaste spill at the Mount Polley coppergold mine in Canada’s British Columbia province in August 2014 as a dangerous precedent.
A tailings pond collapsed at that mine, sending billions of gallons of grey sludge containing metals and minerals into waterways in the province’s interior.
‘‘Everything that Mother Nature has worked so hard to create over the years would be destroyed in seconds, and those fish are not coming back,’’ Jackson said of a possible spill at Pebble Mine.
The Pebble partnership said its design would ensure safety.
‘‘We believe we have designed a responsible and safe storage facility for our tailings and have made some engineering improvements based upon what was learned from that accident,’’ Heatwole said.