I recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to collect the funds needed to complete the fieldwork for my Bristol Bay book.  The funds raised will cover approximately eight trips out to the Bristol Bay region as well as some necessary equipment purchases.  Shortly after my return from covering the Togiak herring sac roe fishery, I was contacted by a reporter from KDLG, the public radio station for Dillingham, to talk about my project and the Kickstarter effort.  Listen to the story.

Perks start for donations as small s $5, so please take the time to visit the Kickstarter campaign page and make a contribution today.  Time is running out – the deadline on the campaign is June 19, 2013.  I only receive the pledged funds if I meet my minimum goal of $20,000 by that date.  Any excess funds raised will be applied to the design and production of the book.  Thank you for your help!

When we order from the menu or purchase from our local grocery store, we rarely think about the process that goes into place to get that food on our plate.  I use the term “we” to refer to those of us who do not catch, shoot or gather most of our foods, like many in Bristol Bay. But knowing that story of how that food ends up at the grocery store or restaurant helps to explain how vital a successful sockeye salmon fishery is to the survival of the Bristol Bay region.

The precise steps vary from operation to operation, but in most cases, delivery of sockeye salmon to market goes something like this.  The first and most crucial step for Bristol Bay is that the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G), after consulting the salmon return numbers, declares that there will be an “opener” for the Bristol Bay commercial sockeye salmon fishery.  ADF&G will establish a date, time and duration for the opener, as well as which districts are affected, and also identify what type of commercial opener it is – drift or set.  There are very strict rules with tough penalties if a commercial fishing crew jumps the gun on that opener.

Once the opener is underway, crews will work furiously to catch as much fish as possible during the window - sometimes only six hours at a time.  During that time, the fish are stored onboard the vessel in totes filled with ice – canneries will provide cash bonuses of a certain number of cents per pound if the fish is delivered at or below a certain temperature.  Very few fishing vessels have their own expensive CSW (chilled sea water) system, so ice is the norm.

Once the opener is closed, the skipper drives the boat to a waiting tender, typically at anchor in the mouth of a river near the district line location.  (There is at least one shore tender operator in Naknek that takes delivery from boats on the beach in the form of a truck with chilled totes.)  The tender takes delivery of the fish by lowering a crane with a hook and scale that lifts up the fish, bale by bale, and dumps the fish into the cargo hold of the tender.  As the fish is being transferred over, it is weighed and the ship’s catch is recorded.  Some canneries will have a quality control person on board the tender who tests a certain number of fish from each catch for quality and temperature.  When I was on an Ocean Beauty tender in the Ugashik District, the quality control person told me she was testing a pre-selected percentage of boats (approximately 45 vessels) and checking them for overall quality (no physical damage to the fish) and temperature (using a digital thermometer).  The observer also tagged approximately ten fish, with each tag indicating the date and time the fish was delivered, so that Ocean Beauty could then follow the fish all the way through processing to meet its own standards of how quickly the fish was processed and delivered.

Once on a tender, the salmon is chilled most often with CSW.  The amount of fish each tender can carry depends on the vessel.  I spent a couple of days on the tender Westward.  The skipper told me the Westward could carry 100 tons of fish in its lower hold, and an additional 40 tons in its uppper hold if needed.  But, it had been 5 years since the Westward had returned to port fully loaded.  It takes time to unload the catch from an opener, with dozens of boats lining up to deliver a catch that can range from 4,000 to 20,000 pounds.  Once the full opener’s catch is delivered, a tender will pull anchor and deliver its catch to the cannery – if the cannery is located on the same river.  If not, the tender waits until its replacement arrives, and then returns to port where the cannery is located.  For the more distant locations, a tender may be on station to receive salmon for up to 48 hours, and it can take several hours to return to the cannery.  For example, when I was on the Westward, I rode it from the Ocean Beauty docks in Naknek down to Ugashik, spent a couple of days on a drift boat (the F/V Chulyen), and then rode back with the Westward to Naknek.  Each way is approximately 80 nautical miles, and the cruising speed for the Westward is about 8 knots, making for about a ten-hour trip each way. 

Once back at the docks (each cannery has its own delivery dock), the salmon is delivered through large flexible tubes that suck the salmon from the cargo hold into the cannery for processing.  For the larger processers, this is an assembly-line process featuring dozens of workers, each assigned different tasks in handling the fish.  For smaller processers, like Naknek Family Fisheries, it is only a handful of people, including the owners, who individually process the fish for packaging and marketing.

Marketing and delivering to the ultimate market varies greatly, depending on size and product.  Some salmon is sold directly to consumers, while others goes through seafood wholesalers before ultimate delivery to a store or restaurant.  Again, with a smaller processor like Naknek Family Fisheries, they are able to personally handle quality, marketing and delivery. 

Then, eventually, we as the end users consume the sockeye salmon, which has undergone an amazing journey since its catch, a journey with no less drama than the lifecycle of the salmon itself.  With so many hands involved in the catching and delivery of sockeye salmon from Bristol Bay, it makes sense that so many are concerned about development of the Pebble Mine, which could put this very mainstay of Bristol Bay life in jeopardy.

While I have a few stories from field trips out into the Bristol Bay region I need to enshrine in this blog, there are some current developments that are worth noting. 

First and foremost, I have launched a new crowd funding effort on USA Projects. USA Projects is a program created by United States Artists (USA), a nonprofit grantmaking and artist advocacy organization that has awarded over $17 million to America’s finest artists in the last six years.  I was able to raise $5,000 earlier this year to fund fieldwork in Nondalton, Iliamna and Dillingham, as well as Seattle, Washington and Butte, Montana.  My new fundraising effort has a minimum goal of $6,000, which must be met by February 4, 2013 in order to retain those funds for my project.  If that goal is met, I will be able to earn as much as $40,000, the amount needed to complete all fieldwork for the book by September 2013.  You can visit the fundraising page, which includes an introductory video, and make a tax-deductible contribution.  One-to-one matching funds are currently available from the Rasmuson Foundation, so you can really maximize your contributions and get some great contribution perks!

Next, I will be on the Shannyn Moore Show this evening (December 20) to talk about my project!  Shannyn Moore has been very active in promoting the protection of Bristol Bay from harmful development.  As a former commercial fisherman and an avid angler, Shannyn has spent a lot of time out in Bristol Bay and has a lot of passion.  Plus, she’s just a hoot to talk to or listen to.  I am honored and excited to be able to appear on her show.  I will be on the air from 7-8 p.m. Alaska Standard Time (that’s four hours behind EST), so you can either listen locally on the radio at 95.5 FM or 1020 AM, or stream online.

Finally, for the last year, the main source of information about this project was the project Facebook page.  Soon, the dedicated website for the project, designed and produced by BuzzBizz Studios, will be available.  The graphic design for the site is complete, and they are creating the content right now.  Content will include a gallery, information about project partners, stills and video of scenery and wildlife, biographical descriptions of people in the region, as well as audio and video of people I have interviewed for the project.  This is going to be a gorgeous site and a fantastic resource for people who want to virtually experience what Bristol Bay is all about. 

More updates and stories will be coming soon, so stay connected!

In 1998, I attended a conference about forest management issues in northern Minnesota. As the co-chair of the Environmental Law Society at the University of Minnesota Law School, I was interested in learning more about legal, policy and management issues related to timber harvesting on our public lands. The conference was a classic gathering of environmentalists, with participants sleeping in tents in a field, listening to presentations and panel discussions in large canvas tents. To further illustrate the tone of the conference, I met a bunch of people affiliated with Earth First!

I also encountered an organization I had not heard of before – Lighthawk. It is a nationwide network of pilots who lend their planes, skills and time to assist in covering environmental issues. Lighthawk’s mission is “to champion environmental protection through the unique perspective of flight.” While a pilot is responsible for his or her own expenses – fuel, maintenance, and other costs related to the aircraft and certifications – Lighthawk provides support in the way of connecting the pilot with conservation partners and  flight planning and related logistics.  Lighthawk’s mission at the conference was to highlight clearcutting that was going on in the Superior National Forest. It’s almost impossible to see such cutting from the ground as the industry leaves “beauty strips” – buffers of untouched forest that hide the areas where cutting occurs.

Seven years later, I was living in Alaska, working as the official photographer for the 8th World Wilderness Congress in Anchorage. Lighthawk was in town for the conference to highlight the oil operations along the Swanson River, right outside of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. An editor from National Geographic was also along for the flight to view the Swanson River operations as a parallel to the potential for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  But at the time, this was a special trip for Lighthawk – there were no Lighthawk pilots based in Alaska.

Fast forward another seven years, and I was having an email exchange with the editor for my Bristol Bay book about potential project partners, particularly with regard to aerial photography. She asked if I had heard of Lighthawk, and I said yes, but did not believe that they operated in Alaska. So, I sent an email to Lighthawk and learned that they did. After a little bit of paperwork and some scheduling, along with a very favorable and lucky weather window, I was ready to go on an aerial excursion into the Bristol Bay region with Lighthawk.

My pilot, Tim Hendricks, flew a Cessna 206 Stationair. Based out of Colorado, Tim spends his summers in Alaska flying guided day and overnight bear tours over to Katmai and Lake Clark for Sasquatch Alaska Adventures Co. out of Homer. I met Tim over near the public fuel pump at Lake Hood – the first time I had ever flown a plane on wheels out of that location. I have flown many times with Rust’s Flying Service out of Lake Hood – in DeHavilland Beavers on floats. Tim was in his cockpit working on his log when I approached, and he came out to shake my hand, towering over me in a lean, tanned frame that stood at least 6’6” – I don’t know how he fits into the cockpit, I thought to myself. Instantly friendly and confident, with a broad smile, I knew we were going to have a great flight.

After a short taxi on the runway, we were headed south across Anchorage for a Turnagain Arm crossing.  Once over the Kenai Peninsula, we crossed west over Nikiski – in sight of its massive port and liquid natural gas (LNG) facility – and then over the Cook Inlet toward the Alaska Range.  Since this particular plane had turbo engines, which provided for more efficiency and power at higher altitudes, we simply crossed over the Alaska Range rather than following the typical route through Lake Clark Pass that most small aircraft follow from Anchorage to Iliamna.

I wanted to see if there were any salmon gathering at the mouth of the Pile River, which empties into Lake Iliamna, so I asked Tim to bring us on a low approach straight over that river.  I was also interested in the river because the proposed haul road for the Pebble Mine would result in a bridge being built over the river.  Michelle had on many occasions told me it was a beautiful river; she was right.  A combination of varying channel depths created by steady flows and flood highs, along with coloration from minerals naturally occurring in the soils and waters of the area created a luscious mixture of colors and silky textures that spread out away from the mouth of the river and well out into the lake.  We circled around a few times so I could capture the images I wanted.  During our second circle, I spotted one of Lake Iliamna’s most rare of residents – a fresh water harbor seal.  Lake Iliamna boasts the only such population in North America, and one of only two or three in the entire world.

We headed across Lake Iliamna, following the western shoreline, spotting isolated islands and white sandy beaches with lagoons along the way, making the landscape look more like the tropics than the far north of Alaska.  We passed the villages of Iliamna and Newhalen along the way, heading for the mouth of Lower Talarik Creek.  My goal was to follow the creek from Lake Iliamna and then head over to the heart of the Pebble exploration area.  Shortly after heading upstream, we saw something I had only hoped for – a creek littered with salmon-sized red shapes in the water; the sockeye were red and running.  We made several passes over the creek, spotting at least six bears at various spots, including a sow with two spring cubs.  I was only able to photograph two boars that were fishing in the middle of the creek.

We continued on up the creek, and then cut over near Sharp Mountain and headed into the heart of the Pebble exploration area near Frying Pan Lake.  There was an equipment staging area (sometimes referred to as “the camp,” but it is actually not used to house personnel), a few operational rigs, and other rigs that were either being set up or torn down.  We also flew over several sites where remediation was underway, and we noticed several metal poles in the ground marking capped drill holes.  There are over 1,300 holes in the area as a result of the exploration of the vast deposit.  It was challenging to circle around and capture the images I wanted because there were three separate helicopters operating in the area, hauling sling loads of equipment from the cargo staging area to the drill sites.  And since the helos did not utilize the standard air traffic communications frequency, there was no way to talk to them and safely coordinate our flying with their activities.  We just had to keep an eye on them.

After a while, we flew into Iliamna to refuel and take a break.  We had already been flying for three and a half hours; and while that time can go quickly, it can also wear on passenger and pilot.  Tim refueled the plane and we pushed it back to the side to have a tail dinner of Sailor Boy Pilot Bread, apple and smoked & canned sockeye salmon from Naknek, courtesy of Aleut elder Violet Willson.  Before we knew it, we were rested and heading back out.

We did a few more circles around the Pebble exploration area – this time helicopter-free – and then proceeded down the South Fork of the Koktuli River.  It was my first time flying over the Koktuli.  Most of the aerial photos you see of the streams of the Bristol Bay region show rivers winding down with towering mountains behind them.  That is not how things look in this part of Bristol Bay.  Shortly after its headwaters, the Koktuli River sprawls out into a relatively flat plain between the hills and low mountains of the Pebble Prospect and the jutting mountains near the head of the Wood River and the area of Wood-Tikchik State Park to the distant west.  The other set of mountains in the area would be the Alaska Range in Lake Clark National Park and Katmai National Park to the east.

The Koktuli is in so many ways a classic Alaskan river.  It meanders across the tundra, working its way through patches of spruce.  It has numerous channels at some points and shows a history of changing course due to intense shifts in water flow.  It has several gravel bars that would make for great camping spots, and an assortment of debris – mostly stripped-bare spruce trees – littering channels and dry spots.  According to the Alaska Department of Fish & Game Anadromous Waters Catalog, it is home for all life stages of chinook, sockeye, coho and chum salmon as well as Arctic char.  We overflew a group of rafters a bit more than halfway down to the confluence of the Mulchatna River, which was where we turned around and started our way back to Anchorage.  A beautiful suprise of the flight was the confluence of the Swan and Koktuli Rivers, where we found two cabins and an incredible view to the north.

The visage of the Koktuli River would likely change with the development of the Pebble Mine.  It is estimated that Pebble would annually consume three times as much water as the city of Anchorage (population 265,000) in order to support its operations.  The Koktuli River would not only be a source of water for the mine’s operations, but the primary tailings pond would displace Frying Pan Lake, the headwaters of the South Fork of the Koktuli River, holding back its flows with a 700-foot high dam.   I could only wonder as I captured these images of the Koktuli River what it might look like after its flow volumes were impacted by the mine.

On our way back to Anchorage, we passed again over the Alaska Range and close to the summit of Mt. Redoubt, one of several active volcanoes in this stretch of the Alaska Range.  Behind the steam rising from its crater I could see another active volcano in the chain, Mt. Iliamna.  I hated to leave behind the wonderous views that this region of Alaska have to offer.  But, Tim and I made tenative plans to come out again in September before he headed back to Colorado, and I looked forward to a landscape altered by the golds, oranges and reds that will be covering the land as autumn progresses.

Butte, Montana has a couple of distinguishing claims to fame; one controversial, the other, not so much.  What is controversial is that Butte boasts to being the headwaters of the Columbia River.  The Canadians and Wikipedia would sharply disagree, but state and federal government and non-profit websites point to Silver Bow Creek in Butte as the headwaters to the Clark Fork River, a “major headwaters stream” of the Columbia River.  Anyone who knows rivers knows that if you start with forks, you end up with the main body of the river sometime downhill. If you trace the Columbia River upstream from the Pacific Coast, you will note that it splits into several forks somewhere in Washington.  One National Park Service map doesn’t even show the Columbia River having any origins in British Columbia. 

But the other Butte claim to fame that is not in dispute is that it contains one of the most contaminated sites in the United States – the Berkeley Pit of the Kelley Mine.  The Anaconda Company broke ground on the pit in 1955, and by 1962 had removed approximately 4.4 million tons of waste rock, reaching a pace of 320,000 tons per day of ore and waste combined.  The company used large ore trucks called “ukes,” running them around the clock, seven days a week, at a rate of no less than 1,600 truckloads a day. The Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) purchased the pit in 1977 and ceased mining it by 1982 because it became less profitable.  In the end, the pit measured 7,000 feet long, 5,600 feet wide, and 1,800 feet deep.  During its 25 years of operation, 700 million pounds of waste rock were removed. 

The Berkeley Pit earned the nickname “The Richest Hill on Earth,” at least until copper prices began a precipitous slide in 1975.   

But digging an 1,800-foot deep pit in the ground was not without consequences.  The pit is located in an area with active groundwater movement.  During the life of its operations, the mining companies kept water out of the pit by using pumps.  When ARCO shut down the pit, it also turned off the pumps.  The groundwater that had been held back for decades returned, slowly filling the pit with a volume of 40 billion gallons.  And that water mixed with oxidized sulfides, commonly found with exposed copper deposits, produced a strongly acidic bath.  In 1995, 342 snow geese landed on those waters and were dead within two days.  Following ARCO’s claims that a fungus had killed the birds, a branch of the Montana Department of Justice examined the birds, noting corroded esophagi and tracheae, as well as bloated livers and kidneys.  In 2007, there was another incident where 17 snow geese, 10 mallard ducks, nine goldeneye ducks and one swan were found floating dead.

As I stood looking over the edge of the pit, standing on piles of waste rock heaped upon the hillside above, my nostrils bristled with the strong smell of sulfides.  The odor sometimes made it hard to focus on the task of taking photos.  I could only imagine what it would have been like for those snow geese.  I was very happy I was wearing some stout boots. 

The Berkeley Pit is now one of the largest Superfund sites in the United States, presenting significant water quality management challenges for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.  It operated under the Mining Law of 1872 and subsequent laws amending it, which essentially govern how to establish a mining claim.  The point of the law was to promote settlement and development of public lands in the West, and has left behind a scarred legacy.  According to the State of Alaska, the Alaska Constitution, article VIII, section 11 was modeled after this law.  Alaska Governor Sean Parnell even recently named May 10 “Mining Day” in honor of this law.  The Berkeley Pit also managed to shape its toxic legacy long after numerous water pollution laws were passed: the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1972), Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), and the Clean Water Act (1977).  Montana’s own Water Quality Act was first passed in 1971.  Thus, despite numerous laws in place, the Berkeley Pit is an environmental disaster.  

In its May/June 2011 Pebble Partnership Newsletter, the Pebble Partnership touted recent tours with “stakeholders” of the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah and the Cortez Hills mine of Nevada as examples of how “mines operating under modern regulations are protecting themselves and the environment.”  The newsletter does not mention the Kelley Mine and its Berkeley Pit.  It also fails to mention that the Bingham Canyon Mine, owned and operated by the Kennecott Copper Company, had contaminated eight nearby sites, including several waterways and neighborhoods, by 1990. It is still under supervision by the EPA for cleanup in connection with the agency’s Superfund program.  The Utah Department of Environmental Quality has also been involved investigating and implementing cleanup of the mine’s contamination of the area.  The Cortez Hills reference is also interesting in that Barrick Gold of North America is moving forward with its expansion of that gold mine against staunch opposition from local Indian Tribes.  Neither of these points can be very reassuring to Alaskans, particularly Alaska Natives, who are opposed to the mine.  Of course, neither of these two mines are situated in salmon spawning and rearing areas, or at the headwaters of a world-class sockeye salmon fishery.

 The Kennecott Copper Mine near McCarthy, Alaska, is also cited by the Pebble Partnership as proof of how copper mines and salmon can coexist.  The Pebble Partnership asserts that since copper was mined there a hundred years ago, and the Copper River enjoys strong sockeye salmon runs today, copper is not always harmful to salmon. 

 The Kennecott Copper Mine first went operational in 1911, when the first ore train hauled 70% copper ore from the mill town down to Cordova on the Prince William Sound, some 197 miles away.  (In contrast, the Pebble mine site is only 11 miles away from the Village of Nondalton, 15 miles from Lake Iliamna, and 130 river miles to Bristol Bay via the Kvichak River.)  The mill town of Kennecott, built near the lateral moraine of the Kennecott Glacier and five miles from the nearest river, is now a historical landmark and managed by Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve.  The Kennecott Glacier creates the Kennecott River, which flows into the Nizina River, which flows into the Chitina River, which flows into the Copper River at the village of Chitina, approximately 60 miles away. The locations where the copper was actually mined were spread out among five mines at distances of up to nearly 4 miles away from the mill facilities, and up to nine miles away from the Kennecott River up in the mountains.  Only one of the mines, the Glacier Mine, was an open pit mine. 

 During its 27 years of operation, the Kennecott Copper Mine produced 4.625 million tons of ore with an average quality of 13% copper, which is considered a high grade ore.  The mine peaked in operations only five years after it started, and declining copper prices in the late 1920s eventually led to the mine ceasing operations in 1938. 

 There are several reasons why the Kennecott Copper Mine is not a good comparison, from a logical or public relations perspective, to the proposed Pebble Mine. 

First, the proposed Pebble Mine would be situated immediately at the headwaters, even displacing some of those waters, for Upper Talarik Creek (which flows to Lake Iliamna, which is the headwaters for the Kvichak River and flows into Bristol Bay) and the South Fork of the Koktuli River (which flows into the Mulchatna River, then the Nushagak River, and then Bristol Bay).  The Kennecott Mine had no hydrological connections to the Copper River, and its only open pit, the Glacier Mine, did not utilize a tailings pond like the Pebble Mine will.  The Pebble Mine would be also situated in the midst of an area that has extensive groundwater movement and connections between groundwater and surface waters.  It is not known what the connections were like at the Kennecott Mine, but the arid regions of Utah and Nevada certainly do not have the saturated grounds found out in Bristol Bay in the Pebble Prospect vicinity. 

 Second, salmon do not use the Nizina or Chitina rivers near the Kennecott mine for salmon rearing.  However, numerous streams and waterways in the vicinity of the proposed Pebble Mine site, including Upper Talarik Creek and the South Fork of the Koktuli River, are primary spawning and rearing habitat. 

 Third, one of the more significant distinctions between the Kennecott Mine and the proposed Pebble Mine is the quality of ore.  The average quality for the Kennecott ore was 13%, but the estimated concentration of the ore in the Pebble claims is 0.34%.  That leads to only 6.8 pounds of copper per ton of ore.  If the Pebble Partnership’s estimates of 55 billion pounds of copper are correct, the company will have to extract 16 trillion pounds of ore to extract the full copper deposit.  That’s over 2,000 times the amount of ore pulled out at Kennecott.  And that does not include the similarly-low quality of gold ore and molybdenum ore that the Pebble Partnership will have to extract in order to access those riches.    

 Finally, and this is the worst message the Pebble Partnership would want to project, the Kennecott Copper Company completely abandoned its facilities after worldwide copper prices crashed.  Kennecott Copper Company’s Robber Baron exploitation of Alaska’s natural resources is one of the reasons why Territorial leaders pushed to bring Alaska into the Union as a state – to make sure that never happened again.  If that mine is an appropriate analogy, then the residents of the Bristol Bay region can count on the Pebble Partnership to abandon the Pebble Mine and its facilities when it is no longer economically viable.  (For a more comprehensive comparison of these issues related to Kennecott and Pebble, read Copper River and Bristol Bay: A Comparison of Salmon and Mineral Resources.)

 The Pebble Partnership has also pointed to the success of sockeye salmon on the Fraser River in British Columbia as an example of how copper mines and salmon can co-exist, but that may not be a good choice for analogy, either.  There likely is no mine in Alaska that offers a fair comparison.  And maybe that’s the point. 

For a comprehensive analysis of water quality impacts on ten case studies of mining operations around the world, read Troubled Waters: How Mine Waste Dumping is Poisoning our Oceans, Rivers, and Lakes published by Earthworks and MiningWatch Canada.

One of the newer outrages that Rep. Don Young, Congressman for all Alaskans who voted for him, has to face is the U.S. Senator from Washington, Maria Cantwell.  What has she done to incur his infamous wrath?  She has stuck her nose in the business of Alaskan resource management.  You see, one of Senator Cantwell’s main issues is sustainability of salmon populations and the fishing jobs they provide.  Not only has she been working to secure funding for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund – from the Columbia River to Puget Sound, salmon populations are struggling to recover after decades of habitat destruction due to natural resource development and urban pollution – she is working to support all intact, healthy salmon ecosystems in North America.  Why?  Because Seattle fishermen could use more jobs in their area and they own permits for commercial fishing in the Bristol Bay region.  She’s even become directly involved in the EPA’s Bristol Bay watershed assessment, which puts her in Don Young’s cross hairs because he has introduced legislation that would strip the EPA of its authority under the Clean Water Act, Section 404(c), to conduct such an assessment.   

Setting aside the political squabbles and power trips, there is a very real tangible connection between Bristol Bay and Seattle that warrants involvement from a U.S. Senator who represents Washington constituents.  When I was out in Bristol Bay last summer, I met three brothers from Seattle who each own their own drift boats and permits.  Like many permit holders, they spend their winters down in Seattle while their boats sit out the winter in Naknek.  When the time comes, they fly up to King Salmon and get their boats ready for another season of sockeye salmon fishing.  And then, sometime in mid-to-late July, depending on how good their season was, they catch a Pen Air or Alaska Airlines flight back to Anchorage and continue on home to Seattle.  According to the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, there are currently 742 drift gillnet permit holders (out of a total of 2154) for Bristol Bay sockeye salmon who reside in the Washington state.  That’s 34% of all Bristol Bay sockeye salmon drift gillnet commercial permits held by residents of Washington.  (Life is too short for me to look on a map and determine all of the towns and cities that are in the greater Seattle area and compare those names with permit addresses to give you a more accurate picture of how many permits are held specifically by Seattle-area residents.)   

And Seattle doesn’t provide just residency for permit holders, it also provides a vibrant consumer market ready to purchase and enjoy all manner of Alaskan seafood.  When I took an early morning stroll down downtown Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market, I saw a lot of fresh seafood – it’s truly one of the wonders of the place, along with the amazing selections of fresh flowers.  But I was looking at the seafood, because I wanted to see how important Alaskan seafood was to this market.  After passing up and down the full length of the market, I could guess that about half of all the seafood came from Alaska.  You could see large banners celebrating the coming Copper River sockeye salmon opener, other signs touting the clear, clean and fresh waters of Alaska and the associated quality of seafood that comes from it. When speaking to Kevin Davis, head chef and owner of the Steelhead Diner and Blueacre Seafood restaurants, he said that people come all over from the country to Seattle for its selection of Alaskan seafood.  A once-bustling seafood generator itself, the Puget Sound commercial fishing markets had collapsed over decades due to resource development and urban pollution.  No longer able to fish their own waters as much, Seattle fishermen had reached up into Alaskan waters and found a way to satisfy the strong demand for fresh seafood in Seattle.    And visitors responded, answering the call to experience seafood from the most pure waters remaining in the United States for sustainable commercial fishing.  

Walking into the Blueacree Seafood restaurant in downtown Seattle, my photographic eye lit up at the incredible contours, lines, graphics and colors creating the atmosphere.  I was there to meet Kevin Davis, head chef and owner, along with being the owner of the Steelhead Diner just a few hundred feet up the hill from the Pike Place Market.   

I contacted Kevin as part of the fieldwork for my Bristol Bay project.  An avid fly fisherman, Kevin features a lot of Alaskan seafood on the menu at his restaurants.  He first heard about the Pebble Mine issue while watching the movie Red Gold. Since then, he has become a culinary warrior in the effort to inform the public about the proposed Pebble Mine, often partnering with Trout Unlimited as part of its campaign to stop the mine’s development. 

 One of the dominant features in the Blueacre restaurant is a large marlin.  One would think that a restaurateur who emphasizes sustainable fisheries would not have a marlin on the wall, but he placed it there is a reminder of how species are impacted by overfishing pressures caused by demands in the restaurant industry. 

 Kevin sees the development of the Pebble Mine as a threat to the sustainability of the Bristol Bay sockeye fishery, as well as the world class sport fishing represented at numerous lodges in the region.  At my request, he prepared a dish featuring a filet of Alaskan sockeye salmon, served with some vegetables and a glass of Pinot Noir.  I long ago envisioned a line of photos showing the progress from where a sockeye is caught in Bristol Bay waters to where it was served on a restaurant in Seattle – this completed the loop.  It was also incredibly delicious.   

When I mentioned to Kevin how many of the fish mongers at Pike Place Market were offering Alaskan seafood, he noted that Alaskan seafood is very important to the Seattle market.  Decades ago, the Puget Sound region had its own vibrant fishery, including Chinook (king) and sockeye (red) salmon, but it had been severely impacted by urban pollution and natural resource development, such as logging.  Seattle purchasers looked to Alaska to fill the gap, and now Seattle visitors go to Pike Place Market and various Seattle restaurants specifically looking for Alaskan seafood. 

As a former recipient of the Rasmuson Foundation‘s Artist Fellowship grant, I regularly receive their updates as to ongoing grant activities by the Foundation.  In reviewing their most recent mailing, I was pleased to see that the Great Land Trust had been awarded a $100,000 grant for infrastructure development of the Campbell Creek Estuary Natural Area.  In 2008, I went out to the estuary with Dave Mitchell from the Great Land Trust to photograph the property to aid them in fundraising for its purchase.  At the time, it was owned by a family trust, and the Great Land Trust was seeking to purchase it to set it aside for conservation – just one of many wetlands in the area that the Trust has targeted as prime habitat for conservation over the years.

In 2010, when they were near reaching a deal with the city regarding the purchase, Mayor Dan Sullivan rescinded the deal, claiming that the land would be better used for private development.  Fortunately, the Great Land Trust was later able to convince him, the purchase was accomplished, and the new Campbell Creek Estuary Natural Area was created.  What is missing to allow it to be fully used by the public is some parking, trails, a kiosk, and other infrastructure.  With this grant money, the Great Land Trust will be able to fulfill its vision, and Anchorage residents and visitors will soon be able to enjoy this new, incredible access to the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge.

Michio's totem

Strolling along a rocky beach in the Halibut Point area of Sitka, Michelle and I walked toward the setting sun, the warm glow breaking some of the winter chill in the air.  As we walked along, the sound of smoothed slate rocks and clam shells beneath our feet, we came upon an unexpected sight: a tall totem pole, looking at at the western sky.  Not that totems are unexpected in Sitka, but they are typically concentrated at the Sitka National Historic Park, also known as Totem Park, on the Indian River near downtown Sitka.  Michelle had read about a totem that was carved in honor of Japanese nature photographer Michio Hoshino, who was slain by a brown bear on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in 1996.  She had shown me an article featuring a photo of the totem artist creating the totem, and I recognized the long black hair of the bottom character in this totem pole as the rendition of Michio Hoshino.  What the character held in his hands confirmed it for me: a depiction of the overlapping layers of an aperture on a lens. 

The totem was carved by Tlingit totem artist Tommy Joseph of Sitka, Alaska.  In an interview with KCAW radio, Joseph notes the unusual combination of animals on the totem: a raven, a caribou, a humpback whale, and a bear.  The first three animals represent common subjects of Michio’s work, which went back and forth between Alaska’s arctic and Interior regions and the islands of the Southeast.  But the bear on the top of the totem is not any bear, but a Glacier Bear, also known as the Blue Bear.  Joseph notes that while Michio strived to capture an image of a Blue Bear, he was never successful; thus, the bear remains out of reach after life as well. 

The totem is a crucial element of the culture of the Native people of Southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.  The carving of a totem is meant to tell a family’s history, identify key moments in a clan’s existence, even to mark important occasions.  They are rarely created to honor a single individual.  I would guess that this particular totem is likely the only one in existence dedicated to a photographer and his body of work.  But people were inspired not only by Michio’s starkly artistic renderings of Alaska’s great wildness, but by Michio himself.  He was renowned for being warm and generous, and having a deep connection with nature, being able to stay in the same location for hours if not days, waiting for the right conditions to capture the photo he envisioned.  He once spent an entire month by himself on a glacier in Denali National Park & Preserve to capture an image of an auror over Denali itself.  He was not successful.

It was his drive to capture signature images of the wild that led to his relationship with Juneau writer and photographer, and sometimes wilderness guide, Lynn Schooler.  I never had the pleasure or honor of ever meeting Michio Hoshino – I moved to Alaska three years after his death.  But I feel that I got to know him a little through Schooler’s The Blue Bear, now also a theatrical adaptation produced by Perseverance Theatre of Juneau.  Through the story of The Blue Bear, you learn about Michio the person and the photographer, and gain a little understanding of his drive as a photographer through his desire to photograph the elusive Glacier Bear.

It is fitting that the totem honoring Michio and his work resides where it does.  The totem sits within a stone’s throw of what locals call “Magic Island” on the outer part of Halibut Point.  It gazes upon the ocean that provides a home to the humpback whales Michio photographed.  It watches the sun move across the sky, bathing the land with the golden light that Michio relied upon as a photographer.  It receives the last warm grace of sunlight as the sun sets behind Mt. Edgecombe.  The sounds of cawing ravens, lapping surf, and squawking gulls keep it company when the beach is empty of the many Sitka residents who go out to enjoy the Halibut Point Recreation Area.  I can only hope that, as the years advance, those who visit Halibut Point will notice the totem and wonder who the man on the bottom of the totem is.

in the tundra at the Pebble site – 2005

Text and photos by Erin Mckittrick of Ground Truth Trekking

August, 2005: I lay my camera carefully in the tundra, then ran back and flopped on my belly, smiling in a frame of reindeer moss and berries. A helicopter roared past, dangling something from a cable beneath it. It had been three days since I talked to another human, but I was surrounded by the sound of their machines: the constant thwack of rotors, the rumbling of drill rigs, and the roar of small planes.

I tucked the camera into the dry bag that hung around my neck, and headed out into the swampy flat that marked a proposed tailings lake, snapping photos between the squalls of rain. For dozens of square miles around me, the rolling wet tundra had been engulfed by an idea bigger than anything this part of the state had ever seen: the Pebble Mine proposal

I wasn’t really a photographer. The digital SLR camera was brand-new to me only a few months earlier. I took pages of detailed notes in a waterproof journal, but I wasn’t yet a writer. I wasn’t an activist. At the time, I wasn’t even an Alaskan. I was just an ex-grad student – a newly-minted Master of Molecular and Cellular Biology looking for a new path in life.

Caribou near the Pebble site – 2005

The New York Times introduced me to Pebble Mine, in a 2005 article that shocked me mostly with what I didn’t know. A giant mine proposal, at the headwaters of a giant salmon fishery – how had I missed such a big issue?

Type “Pebble Mine” into Google today and you’ll be inundated with protest pages and mine company pages, a Wikipedia article, magazine spreads, and news pieces from across the world. There are photos of the prospect, maps galore, photos of people standing with anti-mine banners, photos of drill rigs and photos of salmon… There are movies to watch, a National Geographic piece to read, and a dozen different organizations to join.

In 2005, there was none of that. Pebble Mine’s backers were planning to move to permitting in less than two years. But it seemed like no one had even heard of their plan. Information was difficult to come by. Talking to a director of a prominent conservation group focused on Alaska, I had a hard time convincing him that Pebble actually existed. People cared, but they were few, scattered, and no one was paying them much attention. I couldn’t even find a picture of the place.

So I thought I’d better go take a few.

Three days earlier, I’d walked here alone from Nondalton Village, not sure what I might find. As I walked into the rolling flats of the proposed tailings lake, the wind and rain picked up, whipping the tiny plants into photographic blurs, and spattering water across my lens. The plants hugged the ground in a close-knit mat, surviving by being low and crowded. I followed caribou trails around the brushy tangles, circling Frying Pan Lake, and hiking into the hills on either side of the valley.

Cranberries and reindeer moss – 2005

I’d just spent the whole day hiking in what could become a giant tailings lake. How could everything around me – literally everything I could see, and everything I walked through all day, disappear into a toxic muck pond?

Becoming an Expert

At the end of 2005, typing “Pebble Mine” into Google would bring you straight to me. I had exactly zero funding, and only crude web skills. Yet somehow, my on-the-ground expedition, photographs, research and writing had turned my page into the dominant source of Pebble Mine info on the web. Requests started flooding in. I heard from people who wanted to use my photos, for everything from posters to magazines to college projects. From people who had questions, who wanted to know what they could do, who wanted to know more…

Who was I to be in this position? I tried to live up to it, painstakingly compiling facts and news articles, attending Northern Dynasty’s meetings in Seattle, and reading long papers about mining issues.

Where Threatened Waters Flow

Last of the snow melting from the banks of the upper Koktuli River – 2006

June, 2006: I walked out of Nondalton Village, this time with Hig and my friend Tom in tow. The tundra was painted with the pastel yellows and pinks of tiny wildflowers and tinged with the dull, muted tones of ground that has only recently emerged from the snow.

Even from this closest village, the Pebble valley was still a day and a half’s walk away. As we approached the first of the exploration drill rigs, a trio of caribou trotted past gracefully. A helicopter roared across the dark grey sky, tilting and bouncing in the punishing wind. Trash littered the ground near the trampled and muddy pits of old drill rig sites. I crouched in the grass with my telephoto lens, shooting drill rigs and hoses, and the sludge of rock slurry spilling out over the tundra.

Our mission on this journey was to follow the water. As salmon swim, and as toxins might flow, we spent a month traveling almost 500 miles under our own power, hiking and packrafting the length of both watersheds that connect the Pebble site to Bristol Bay.

My natural shyness had been countered by my bolder companions. As we passed through villages, we began to talk to the locals – about the area, about our trip, about the mine. Each person we spoke to seemed keen to tell us that their entire village was against the mine. They were concerned about the fish, and skeptical of the mining company’s promises.

Here in the Bristol Bay watersheds, everyone knew about Pebble. Everyone had strong opinions. But the rest of the state and the country was just starting to hear of it.

Drill rig at the Pebble Prospect – 2008.

Familiar Ground

March, 2008: A wind swept our skis down the frozen surface of Sixmile Lake. As we approached Nondalton Village a cluster of low, colorful buildings emerged from the bare birch and shaggy spruce on its shores. The small forms of people appeared on the edge of the ice, approaching to greet us.

“Come in! There’s moose stew and all kinds of food.”

By now, we were returning to familiar ground. We dumped our snowy backpacks in a corner of the Nondalton community center, underneath a poster of my photographs from 2005, and lined up for styrofoam bowls of moose stew.

Anti-mine symbols graced buttons and baseball caps around the room—a neat red slash through the words “Pebble Mine.” “No Pebble Mine” posters covered the walls, the professional work of an Anchorage environmental group intermingled with the colorful hand-drawn efforts of local children. Nunamta Aulukestai, a multi-village organization firrmly against the mining proposal, had invited a panel of scientists and a state official to talk about the potential impacts of a mine.

Somewhere in the past few years, things had changed. Not just here in the villages, but across the state. More and more, Pebble was even popping up in national and international media. Pebble Mine wasn’t the issue no one had heard of anymore. It was the issue everyone had an opinion on. It was the issue that dominated commercials and ballot initiatives, and seemed better known than any other resource issue in the state.

Forever

Elders outlining subsistence resources near the Pebble site – 2008

Tom Crafford (state DNR large mine coordinator), stood up in front of the small crowd in the Nondalton community center, explaining the setup at Red Dog Mine, where a water-treatment plant sits at the outlet of the tailings storage lake, perpetually deacidifying and detoxifying the water before it is released, making it safe for downstream life. When the mine closes, the treatment plant will still be there, treating the water in perpetuity. Other maintenance will need to be performed perpetually as well, keeping the toxic tailings stored in a dammed-off lake, forever sequestered away from water and air. This is what the future of Pebble Mine might look like

Hig broke in with a question: “What exactly do you mean by ‘in perpetuity?’”

“Forever,” Crafford responded.

“Actually forever?”

“Yes.”

“When the United States no longer exists, when glaciers roll over the landscape in another ten thousand years, some guy is going to be out there with a bulldozer maintaining the dams around the tailings storage lake? To a geologist, forever doesn’t even make sense!”

Forever is impossible. Whether it happened in one year, ten years, a hundred years, or a thousand, those tailings would eventually pollute the downstream watersheds. Failure was a given. We were just taking bets on when it might happen, and how rapid a failure it might be.

What’s Next?

A thunderstorm approaches the Pebble site – 2006

In some ways, we’ve moved away from Pebble Mine in the last few years, broadening our focus to encompass issues that haven’t yet reached everyone’s attention. Against the backdrop of air-supported National Geographic photo trips and constant television ads, my home-grown efforts seemed paltry. The world may not need my photos of Pebble any longer. But there are questions that no one else is asking.

I haven’t been back to Pebble since 2008. But Hig’s visited the area every summer, digging trenches, doing high-resolution GPS surveys, searching for evidence of faults and earthquakes. Even in the 30,000 page baseline data document Pebble Mine recently released, there is only a paltry 3 pages covering seismic risk. And in those 3 pages, there’s not much worth looking at. For other industrial projects in seismically active areas, companies pay for detailed surveys that identify faults and quantify risk. Here, Hig has spent yeas doing the only original science on seismic hazard risk in the Pebble Mine region.

In the last seven years, I’ve watched awareness and outreach on the Pebble Mine issue blossom far beyond what I could have possibly imagined. But that question Hig asked in Nondalton still hangs unanswered. It’s an issue that comes up in large mine projects across the state and the world. As far as I know, there is no solution to the problem of permanent tailings storage other than what we were told by the PR rep for Red Dog mine.

What will we do about forever?