Yesterday Bristol Bay United released a new poll on Alaskans’ attitudes about the Pebble Mine – and the news isn’t good for the project.
The poll reveals that opposition to the Pebble Mine remains strong across Alaska, with 62% of likely Alaskan voters opposing the mine and only 33% supporting it. The intensity gap is also glaring: 47% of respondents are “strongly opposed” to the mine and only 16% “strongly support” it. Notably, the opposition crosses political and ideological lines.
The poll also reveals the strong support for EPA action to protect Bristol Bay: 55% support EPA action to deny Pebble Mine the federal permit necessary to move forward.
These results are just the latest confirmation of the overwhelming opposition to Pebble Mine.
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A poll released by NRDC revealed that a significant majority of Americans in the lower 48 (77%) oppose Pebble Mine. A survey by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) found that 81% of its Native shareholders strongly oppose Pebble Mine. And polling data released by the Alaska Conservation Foundation found that 85% of commercial fishermen in Bristol Bay oppose Pebble Mine, including 80% who oppose it strongly.
Other surveys have also documented substantial local opposition to Pebble Mine, finding that over 80% of Bristol Bay residents oppose Pebble Mine.
All of these poll results leave no room for doubt.
The overwhelming majority of Bristol Bay residents–together with a strong majority of Alaskans and Americans in the lower 48 – do not want the Pebble Mine. They do not want a mine that would dump an estimated 10 billion tons of mining waste at the headwaters of the greatest wild salmon fishery in the world. They do not want a mine that would threaten the region’s salmon – the economic and cultural backbone of the region that supports 10,000 jobs, a $1.5 billion annual commercial fishing industry, and a subsistence lifestyle that has flourished for millennia.
Three of the biggest mining companies in the world – Anglo American, Rio Tinto, and Mitsubishi – have all backed out of the Pebble Mine. Tell Northern Dynasty Minerals – the last company standing behind the Pebble Mine – that it’s time to listen to the people and do the same. Click here to tell Northern Dynasty Minerals that it’s time to walk away from Bristol Bay.