Stop the Pebble Mine, Save Bristol Bay
What's At Stake
One of the earth’s most pristine ecosystems is being threatened by a proposed open-pit mega-mine.
The Pebble Mine—proposed at the headwaters of the planet’s greatest wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska—threatens the communities and ecosystems that depend on the bay’s abundant wildlife. It’s also a terrible investment, pitting an eternal supply of food against an eternal supply of poison.
The Bristol Bay watershed is one of America’s last great wild places, home to bears, eagles, and wolves. It provides half the world’s wild sockeye salmon, supports 14,000 jobs, and generates $1.5 billion in economic activity every year. But if this gold and copper mine gets built, it will poison the bay’s headwaters with up to 10 billion tons of mining waste that will have to be stored—forever—in a wet and seismically active region. And that risk has grown since former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt cut a backroom deal with Northern Dynasty Mineral Ltd., the Canadian company behind the toxic Pebble Mine project, throwing a lifeline to company and emboldening it to apply for permits and seek new investors.
NRDC has been calling on the Trump administration to affirm that the Pebble Mine has no place in Alaska’s Bristol Bay and will continue to do so with the Biden administration. Backlash from businesses, fishing communities, and Indigenous groups is growing, and major investors—including Mitsubishi, First Quantum Minerals, Anglo American, and Rio Tinto, some of the world’s largest mining companies—have already abandoned this risky project.
For millennia, Alaska’s Bristol Bay has provided for us. It’s an ecological treasure—and it deserves our protection.
Call on the Biden administration to take bold action in its first 100 days
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Reporting, expert commentary, analysis, and more.
The Army Corps found that the proposed gold and copper mine would cause “unavoidable adverse impacts to aquatic resources” in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay watershed that has sustained Indigenous subsistence cultures for thousands of years.
This is an environmental justice issue for our people. If our land and water are devastated, our people are devastated. The Army Corps is not listening . . . [and the company is] dismissive of our people’s concerns.
$12.5M
Pebble Mine CEO Tom Collier's contract entitles him to a $12.5 million bonus if an Army Corps permit can be obtained on schedule.
Morgan Stanley reports over 99 percent reduction in shares of Northern Dynasty Minerals, sole owner of widely condemned Bristol Bay mining scheme.
The Trump administration has made rescuing the Pebble Mine part of its deregulatory agenda, arguably the most environmentally destructive in modern history.
After all these years, the Pebble Mine is still crazy, and the opposition will never relent.
The Army Corps is now blatantly ignoring a clear and bipartisan directive from Congress to address data gaps and deficiencies in the Pebble Mine environmental impact statement.
Canadian owner of widely condemned Bristol Bay mine desperately seeks new partner with a few billion to spare. Financial, social, and environmental indifference required.
The Army Corps of Engineers' environmental impact statement is rushed and—at best—superficial.
The fate of the Pebble Mine may be the most consequential land use decision in North America today, pitting an essentially eternal supply of food against an essentially eternal supply of poison.
75%
The percentage drop in the share price of Northern Dynasty, the Canadian owner of the reckless Bristol Bay mining scheme
100%
The percentage of government members of the IUCN who supported protection of the world’s greatest wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay from large-scale mining
65%
The percentage of votes in every Alaska precinct in favor of the "Bristol Bay Forever" initiative
