Public Story
Salmon vs. Gold
If built, Pebble Mine would use earthen dams to store hundreds of millions of tons of toxic mine tailings—including selenium, mercury, arsenic, and sulfuric acid—in the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed, the world's most productive wild salmon habitat. If the mine tailings were to leach into the water table, the rivers could be poisoned, destroying the homelands of over 25 Alaskan Native tribes and the jobs of 14,000 people who make a living from Bristol Bay's $1.5 billion salmon fishery. The construction of mining infrastructure would also result in permanent habitat loss for the world's most celebrated populations of wild brown bears, which depend upon the region’s salmon-bearing rivers and draw tens of thousands of visitors to Alaska every year.
Although the Pebble project was blocked in 2014 under the Clean Water Act, its permitting process has been fast-tracked under the Trump Administration. For now, the fate of the region remains uncertain: while supporters of Pebble Mine wish to bolster the local economy, opponents of the mine feel that the consequences of an environmental disaster—to the salmon, the people of the region, and the bears—are simply too great to risk.
These images are a selection from assignments from National Geographic and the New York Times.
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