Call to Action !
Save Alaska's Wild Salmon & Clean Water

- Help Stop the Pebble Mine and
the proposed new mining district at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed in Alaska

If you're an Alaskan, write Governor Sarah Palin and tell her what you think.
- Email the Governor HERE.

If you're not an Alaskan, the best way to help is to join the RRC.
- Join the RRC HERE.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!

Your participation is vital to stopping the development of open pit gold and copper sulfide mines in the Pebble mining district, and the proposed BLM mining district of Southwestern Alaska. We are seeking your support, and involvement to help save fishing and hunting resources by asking you to:

1) First, review the information in our website and JOIN the Renewable Resource Coalition if you agree that the Pebble Mining district is an incredibly bad idea for the Bristol Bay watershed of Alaska. Your membership fee will be used in the fight to preserve Alaska's fishing and hunting resources.

2) Encourage every organization that you belong to, to go on the record
opposing the Pebble mine and the mining districts.

3) Please tell everyone you know about the threat;

4) Respond to Pebble mine news stories with your own letters to the editor and call-ins to radio stations.

- write a letter to the editor by email:

Anchorage Daily News
letters@adn.com
(Letters to the editor, must be 250 words or fewer)

Anchorage Daily News - Compass
compass@adn.com
OpEd/Compass Piece (675 word limit)

Juneau Empire
editor@juneauempire.com
(Letters must be 400 words or fewer)

Homer News
letters@homernews.com

Bristol Bay Times
bbtimes@nushtel.com

Kenai Peninsula Clarion
http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/lettertoeditorform.shtml

5 ) Lastly, contact Alaska state and federal officials, or members of your own congressional delegation if you're not an Alaskan, and demand they oppose the mine right now and publicly. Please write, call or fax your congressional reps and also Governor Palin, Ted Stevens, Don Young and or members of the Alaska State Legislature. Addresses of the Alaska State Legislature can be found at http://w3.legis.state.ak.us/home.htm.

And again, please click here and Join Us – Membership Information

Other addresses and contact information is as follows:

Email Addresses of the Alaska House Resources Committee:

Chairman: Rep_Jay_Ramras@legis.state.ak.us

House Resource Committee Members:

Representative_Mary_Kapsner@legis.state.ak.us
Representative_Carl_Gatto@legis.state.ak.us ;
Representative_Gabrielle_LeDoux@legis.state.ak.us ;
Representative_Harry_Crawford@legis.state.ak.us ;
Representative_Jim_Elkins@legis.state.ak.us ;
Representative_Paul_Seaton@legis.state.ak.us ;
Representative_Kurt_Olson@legis.state.ak.us

For telephone, fax and street address of House Resource legislators, please click here.

 

This fight to save the Bristol Bay watershed is going to be a tough battle against a well financed mining conglomerate, but we can win it. Most Alaskans appreciate the Bristol Bay area as being the best of the best Alaska has to offer - for it’s spectacular fishing, the scenery and for it’s hunting opportunities. Accordingly, I think this is one situation where all commercial and sport fishermen, lodge owners, hunters, native subsistence users, tourism businesses and environmentalists can agree. The Pebble Mine, the mining district, and the road thereto, need to be stopped! Thanks for any help you can give the Renewable Resources Coalition. Learn more about how you can help save the Bristol Bay watershed of Alaska below.

P.S. As many of you know, BLM's "preferred" alternative recommends that the agency create a major new mining district in Bristol Bay greatly expanding the existing Pebble mining area. For details please see the following for some background - http://www.renewableresourcescoalition.org/BLM.htm .

Additionally, the Alaska Dept of Environmental Conservation is now seeking input on new regulations regarding water quality. The following was recently received:

Dear Interested Alaskan:
The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) appreciates your feedback on the Water Quality Standards (WQS). Every three years, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) reviews Alaska’s water quality standards.  This comprehensive evaluation, called the Triennial Review, is required by the federal Clean Water Act and is an essential process that keeps Alaska's waters swimmable, fishable, drinkable and workable.  This review helps to keep the pollution limits for Alaska's waters up to date by integrating the latest science and technology and federal requirements into how the State regulates water quality.  In determining which of the topics the Water Quality Standards Program will review during the next three years, the program considered public comment, department staff comments, potential actions by EPA, and existing workload. 
ADEC went to public notice with a list of 15 potential WQS revision topics in June 2007 and sought feedback on those and other standards that the state should review for potential revisions. ADEC received 68 public comments. After reviewing the public comments and consulting with other state resource agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the ADEC Division of Water has selected the following priority topics for review and potential revision: Antidegradation Policy Implementation Guidance, Groundwater Standards, Dissolved Inorganic Substances/Total Dissolved Solids, Toxics Manual Revisions, and other WQS On-Going Projects. Fact sheets for each of these topics are linked below. Please note that ADEC will continue to research other projects and ADEC may shift priorities during the three years of this review. However, all regulatory proposals will continue to be sent to public notice as required by law.
High priority topics (for revision in the next three years):

• Toxics – DEC will propose adoption of EPA’s 2006 National Recommended Criteria for Toxic Pollutants and revised narrative criteria. However, DEC is postponing updates to human health criteria for fish consumption (Table V of the Toxics Manual) to allow for a more careful review of fish consumption rates in Alaska. DEC will also be proposing a change to the aluminum criteria for freshwater aquatic life and will be making a technical correction to the marine ammonia criteria.
• Antidegradation Implementation Guidance – The department will develop implementation guidance that will provide specific information and procedures necessary to ensure the requirements of Alaska’s antidegradation policy are met in a consistent and predictable fashion. This guidance will be developed in collaboration with other state and federal agencies, and public input.
• Dissolved Inorganic Substances/Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) – Given the literature review findings, DEC will consider revising the current TDS criterion for freshwater aquatic life. In consultation with EPA and others, DEC will consider possible changes to ensure protection of the growth and propagation of Alaskan species of fish and other aquatic life. The workgroup will work in consultation with EPA to create a protective criterion for Alaskan species.
• Groundwater Standards – DEC will identify procedures to determine transition boundaries where groundwater may influence surface water and aquatic habitat. After determining these procedures, appropriate water quality standards will be determined for groundwater.

Pre-regulatory research priorities:

• Temperature Criteria – Prior to determining if regulatory changes are necessary, DEC will assess the extent to which changes in temperature may be affecting aquatic life due to various human impacts from both inside (e.g. urban development) and outside (global climate change) Alaska. In addition to reviewing implementation issues for the current temperature criteria, DEC may consider revising the criteria if necessary to take appropriate actions on climate change and habitat protection.
• Nutrient Criteria – Alaska has experienced urban development and some agricultural activity in the Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna Valley (Cook Inlet Ecoregion) that may cause pollution by nutrients in some waterbodies. The department (with other state and federal agencies) is in the process of monitoring selected waterbodies in these areas for nutrients and related parameters. DEC will continue monitoring activities to make recommendations for numeric nutrient criteria for Alaska. Research will continue to focus on the Cook Inlet Ecoregion.

Topics to be monitored for potential effects on standards implementation:

• Bacteria Criteria – Currently Alaska’s bacteria standard is based on Food and Drug Administration recommendations for fecal coliform bacteria standard to protect fish and seafood consumption. Fecal coliform bacteria are a microbial indicator of probable sewage or fecal contamination. EPA has also promulgated bacteria criteria for marine recreation use in Alaska that use Enterococci bacteria as the microbial indicator. Based on recent research and EPA’s updated recommendations, the department is assessing whether Alaska’s water quality standard should be revised. The department is also working on implementation issues for bacteria criteria through the BEACH Grant program including beach monitoring activities and studies of sample holding time limits.
• Fish Consumption Values – DEC will analyze whether or not human health criteria for Alaska will rely on EPA’s default fish consumption values or Alaska-specific fish consumption values. Regional or waterbody specific criteria will be reviewed with subsistence information for protection of high subsistence use waters. During the next three years DEC will evaluate fish consumption in Alaska, review EPA’s updated human health criteria for fish consumption, to determine applicability and implementation issues necessary to ensure Alaska’s criteria are protective for all Alaskans.

DEC will address a couple of topics at a time and is likely to issue public notices for several regulation revisions over the next three years. By performing each topic review and WQS revision separately, each topic can move at its own speed and more complex topics will not hold up other WQS changes that are ready for adoption.
If you have unanswered questions or comments, please feel free to browse our website or contact me at:
Jim Powell
ADEC Water Division
610 University Ave.
Fairbanks, Alaska 99709
e-mail: Jim_powell@dec.state.ak.us
phone:  (907) 451-2881 
fax: (907) 451-2187WQS website: http://www.dec.state.ak.us/water/wqsar/wqs/wqs.htm
Thank you for your participation.

        Sincerely,
       
        Jim Powell
        Water Quality Standards
        Section Manager

Join Us – Membership Information

For more information, please contact us at:

Renewable Resources Coalition, Inc.
500 L Street, Suite 502
Anchorage, AK 99501
Tel: (907) 743-1900
Email: info@renewableresourcescoalition.org