Saturday Shoutout / Bye-Bye Bristol Bay

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Once again we are at the threshold of disaster in Alaska’s Bristol Bay

I have very little that’s positive to say about this. If you care at all about wild salmon, and for that matter the food chain on which we all depend for life, you should watch this video on the American Angler site. You should also visit http://www.savebristolbay.org and get involved.

 

EPA REVERSES SALMON PROTECTION FOR BRISTOL BAY

 

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Louis Cahill
Gink & Gasoline
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6 thoughts on “Saturday Shoutout / Bye-Bye Bristol Bay

  1. It’s amazing the amount of folks up here who oppose this project and a lot of projects like Pebble.

    Hardcore “3rd generation” Alaskans shockingly seem to be in favor of any and all development in this great state. Either they simply don’t understand that there is literally nothing left on earth like Alaska left or they just don’t care about what they have.

    All is see and hear is “drill baby drill.”

    Some days I think I’m living on another planet.

    When we thwarted Chugagh Electric’s attempts to build a dam on the headwaters of the Kenai River, we got tons of pushback from “good ol boys” talking about “jobs” and all sorts of nonsense.

    I hope that attitudes change, but if Alaskans want this sort of development, it seems they’ll get just what they’re looking for.

    Alaska is Fracked, Dammed, Mined, Clear Cut and Oil Spilled… just like the lower 48. Hopefully it doesn’t lose its luster, but if development like this continues, kiss the last frontier goodbye.

  2. Louis, I can understand all of the very good reasons you may have for not wanting to inject politics into a fishing blog. Other fishing venues have struggled with the same issue. Ted Williams, for example, has been a real lightning rod in his highly politicized articles about conservation, habitat, etc. But unfortunately, in this day and age, politics and our passion for fly fishing are no longer inseparable. Whether we are talking about climate change, protecting the habitat, water quality, and a host of other issues, there is usually a divide, at least in Washington, among the political parties. This has become painfully obvious to me and many others. You can’t just pick up a fly rod and have someone take videos of you for your campaign to be an actual friend of outdoor sports, as many politicians in the West so often do. A former vice president whose Secret Service code name was ‘Angler” held secret meetings with the oil and gas industry to write an energy policy and pass legislation that protects industries from disclosing the chemicals they inject into our groundwater sources when they frack. The latest episode in the Bristol Bay saga occurred because our current EPA secretary is in fact hostile to any constraint placed upon extraction companies, or corporations of any kind, for that matter. These are the people whose campaign coffers overflow with money from corporations engaged in a fight against us, the stewards of fish habitat. I wish you the best of luck as you navigate your course between being a responsible and engaged leader in the fishing world and yet an apolitical blogger not intent on alienating the fishing readership.

  3. As an Alaskan, this poses a real problem for those of us living here. As a general rule, we’re all for resource development (Drill Baby Drill) as a benefit to state income and jobs (not to mention the PFD), but as fishermen we are opposed to the development of the Pebble Mine in any form. There are thousands of folks that depend on the salmon of Bristol Bay for a living. The Commercial Fishing Industry has, pretty much, a strangle hold on the political side of fish management here. The question is will it be strong enough to hold off the Pebble Consortium? Time will tell.

  4. This goes way beyond fishing. Yeah, I do want to read about fishing in a political-free environment at times. I get my fill of all the doom and gloom. I’m a fish biologist so I deal with it regularly. But the fact remains that fishing as we know it today will not be experienced by my grandsons even in a best case scenario. So much more than recreational fishing is under real threat. Things like clean air and water. Advocating for fish conservation is not advocating for fly fishing, it is advocating for a livable future.

  5. I understand the fear, but I don’t believe this is exactly the doomsday of Bristol Bay being reported. This was about the process of being able to submit an application for the mine, no one has said it’s a go. There was a lawsuit because the EPA was not giving them a fair opportunity to even submit an application. Now, do not get me wrong, I’m a steward of the land, I would be devastated if this went unchecked and such a beautiful resource was destroyed, but I encourage you to dig a little deeper on your news sourcing, you might realize some sources are playing to a particular crowd. If objectiveness in science is what we promote and scientist are who we trust, then why do we accept subjective opinions from political talking heads as the basis for our argument? If you think one political party doesn’t care about the environment then look into what was done to protect the sage grouse, you will see an extreme example of bi-partisanship when you see how much money both parties spent toward a common goal. Point is that no one can afford the doom being subjectively reported, I assure you there is bi-partisanship when it comes to protecting wildlife. I also agree that politics should be avoided on this site.

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