Bristol Bay, Alaska
sockeye salmon capital of the world
Melissa Trainer
Chris Miller
I
f you buy, sell, or eat wild salmon,
then there’s a good chance it came
from Bristol Bay. Located in the
remote Southwest corner of Alaska,
Bristol Bay is home to the world’s
largest sockeye salmon fishery and
is one of the world’s last wild Pacific
salmon strongholds. It is also home
to two national parks (Katmai and
Lake Clark), Alaska’s largest state
park (Wood-Tikchik), three active
volcanoes (Augustine, Iliamna, and
Redoubt), and Lake Iliamna (Alaska’s
largest lake). Still remarkably pristine,
the Bristol Bay watershed produces,
on average, 38 million adult sockeye
salmon each year, supplying nearly
50 percent of the world’s sockeye
salmon. While Bristol Bay is most
known for its sockeye salmon, it also
boasts healthy populations of king,
coho, pink, and chum (or “keta”)
salmon. In fact, the Nushagak River
in Bristol Bay produces some of the
largest king salmon runs in the world.
Bristol Bay’s abundant wild salmon
populations are no coincidence. They
are a result of several key factors,
including high quality habitat and
sustainable fishery management. Due
to its remote location, much of Bristol
Sockeye salmon spawning in Bristol Bay watershed.
Ben Knight
Bay remains untouched by human
development and resource extraction,
allowing local salmon populations
and other native wildlife to exist and
thrive as they have for thousands
of years. Alaska’s Department of
Fish and Game carefully monitors
and manages Bristol Bay’s salmon,
with fishery biologists and fishery
managers working together to
set escapement goals and harvest
targets that will ensure healthy future
populations. Their efforts have
resulted in Bristol Bay becoming an
international model of sustainable
fishery management.
Bristol Bay’s salmon are the lifeline
for the entire region, supporting a
variety of fisheries in Bristol Bay,
including its sustainable commercial
salmon fishery which recently
celebrated its 130th anniversary.
Bristol Bay’s commercial fishing
industry provides over 14,000
renewable jobs each year, many of
those jobs being fishermen and their
crew. Each fishing vessel in Bristol
Bay operates as a small independent
business, many of them family
operations with multiple generations
onboard. Fishermen either sell their
catch to a seafood processor, or some
do their own direct sales to customers
around the country. Combined, Bristol
Bay’s fishing industry generates $1.5
billion in economic activity each year,
providing a critical source of revenue
for both the region and nation.
In addition to Bristol Bay’s commercial
fishery, both its sport fishing and
tourism industries contribute
significantly to the region’s economy
and renewable jobs. Bristol Bay
also provides a way of life for
Alaska Natives who have practiced a
subsistence lifestyle for thousands of
years, relying on healthy salmon as the
foundation of their diet and the heart
of their culture.
THE PEBBLE MINE
The future of this irreplaceable
renewable resource – the fisheries of
Bristol Bay – and local communities
is currently jeopardized by a
proposed open-pit and underground
gold and copper mine that foreign
companies are seeking to develop in
the headwaters of Bristol Bay’s most
productive salmon rivers. The project
(known as the Pebble Mine) would be
North America’s largest open-pit mine,
generating up to 10 billion tons of
mining wasterock during its projected
lifetime.
In 2011, nine federally-recognized
Alaska Native tribes alongside Bristol
Bay’s fishermen formally asked the
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) to pursue measures under the
Clean Water Act’s Section 404(c) to
protect Bristol Bay’s salmon from
the proposed Pebble Mine. In
response to their request, the EPA
initiated a scientific study, looking at
the potential impacts that large-scale
mining could have on Bristol Bay and
its salmon populations. In January
2014, after three years of research
and two scientific peer reviews, the
EPA released its final watershed
assessment, concluding that a mine
Smoked salmon drying in subsistence smokehouse.
ElizabethCorey
Herendeen
Arnold
The Pebble deposit at headwaters of Bristol Bay.
similar to Pebble could result in: lost
salmon habitat (rivers, lakes, wetlands),
degradation of the ecosystem (water
quality, contamination), and the risk of
an environmental disaster.
At the continued urging of Alaskans,
the EPA initiated Section 404(c) as a
way to take proactive measures to limit
certain mining activities in the Bristol
Bay watershed, specifically activities
that would involve disposing high
volumes of dredge and fill material
(i.e., mining wasterock) into Bristol
Bay’s sensitive salmon habitat.
Corey Arnold
Upon the release of its draft
determination, the EPA started a
public comment period, which will run
from July 21 - September 19th, 2014.
Public comments can be submitted
online at www.regulations.gov (specify
Docket # EPA-R10-OW-2014-0505) or
by email and mail.
Learn More:
www.bristolbaysockeye.org
www.pebblescience.org
www2.epa.gov/bristolbay
To learn more about Bristol Bay, Alaska and
Bristol Bay Sockeye, please contact:
Elizabeth Herendeen, Marketing Director
Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association
[email protected] / 970.889.1440
bristolbaysockeye.org |
BristolBaySockeye |
@bbsockeye