Fly Fishing Petition for Bristol Bay

TO:

The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne – U.S. Secretary of the Interior
The Honorable Ted Stevens – U.S. Senator from Alaska
The Honorable Lisa Murkowski – U.S. Senator from Alaska
The Honorable Don Young – U. S. Representative from Alaska
The Honorable Sean Parnell – Governor of Alaska

We, the undersigned fly fishermen and conservationists, are deeply concerned with proposals to transform vast tracts of land in southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed into a massive mining district. Many of us, along with our friends and fellow anglers from across America and around the world, travel to Bristol Bay to pursue some of the world’s last great runs of wild salmon and trophy rainbow trout. For untold numbers of us Bristol Bay is viewed as a “once in a lifetime” dream destination. Bristol Bay is a national and international treasure; its salmon, trout and wilderness character are worth far more than the minerals that may lie below the land’s surface.

We respectfully request that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management maintain the current prohibition on hard rock mine prospecting and development on publicly-owned land it manages in the Bristol Bay area. We further request the State of Alaska reject water withdrawal, dam construction, and other permit applications recently submitted by mining companies. If these permits were granted, mining companies could possibly drain critical salmon rivers and trophy trout streams and destroy valuable habitat. The State of Alaska and the federal government should strongly consider creation of a watershed-wide system of conservation units to preserve the renewable resources that this region supports.

The Bristol Bay salmon fishery generates an estimated $332 million per year; with sport fishing contributing a whopping $61 million to that total. Proposals to turn the region into a huge mining district, complete with tailings-filled lakes created behind some of the largest earthen dams on the planet and access roads across the wilderness, are short-sighted and expose the region’s incredible trout and salmon resources to what we feel is an unacceptable level of risk.

Respectfully,