By Bob Tkacz
For the Journal of Commerce

Legislative hearings in three Bristol Bay villages unearthed divisions over proposed state legislation that opponents argue would block most commercial development in the region - including the Pebble mine.

Members of the Alaska House Resources and Fisheries committees held three days of hearings Sept. 24-26 to discuss Rep. Bryce Edgmon's bill HB 134, Protection of Salmon Spawning, introduced in the state House last February.

The bill aims to create a Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve and enact new controls on water quality that would affect development activity near streams. The bill stalled in the House Special Committee on Fisheries after initial hearings last spring.

It's unclear how the September hearings may affect the legislation. “I'm going to describe it as conceptual. It needs more work,” Edgmon said Sept. 25. Edgmon's district covers the Bristol Bay and eastern Aleutians regions.

The Pebble project is a large copper-gold-molydenum deposit located at the head of the Bristol Bay watershed, some 18 miles north of Iliamna on the Alaska Peninsula. If Pebble is developed it would be one of the world's largest mines of its type.

After the two-hour session in Naknek on Sept. 25, fisheries committee chairman Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer, said his panel had received several good suggestions.

Seaton said the bill may stop mine projects but would not prevent offshore oil or gas exploration, and asked for comment on that. Most who addressed oil and gas development said they would prefer exploration take place onshore.

While there are exemptions, the bill prohibits virtually any commercial withdrawal or other uses of water from watersheds of the five major Bristol Bay rivers and any damming or other land conversions that would affect salmon or their habitat.

Edgmon said his bill is not intended to kill the massive Pebble gold and copper mine project, but is meant to hold it and most any other commercial development to a higher standard of water quality protection.

“Not to mince any words, we all know that the Pebble mine is the impetus for this bill,” Edgmon said at the start of the Sept. 24 hearing in the village of Newhalen, located on Iliamna Lake.

For the next two hours legislators listened to opposition and support for the bill that split largely along geographic lines. Residents of Newhalen opposed the bill. The majority of those from Nondalton, some 30 miles to the north, supported the bill.

“We are not miners in my community. We are fishermen,” said one Nondalton resident.

Representatives of Northern Dynasty Mines Inc., the company working to develop the Pebble project, opposed the legislation.

Bella Hammond, Jay Hammond's widow, endorsed the bill. While not mentioning the Pebble project by name, she said the region's fisheries could be at risk in the future.

“I really feel that we have a concern that is looming that could sorely affect our fisheries and I can't imagine that they should be endangered in any way ... One day people will wonder if the fish are safe to eat. It's a possibility,” Hammond said.

Sean Magee, Northern Dynasty vice president for public affairs, said the bill “is not an honest effort to see that the Pebble project is developed in a reasonable manner. It is an attempt to stop development under any circumstances.”

Edgmon asked Magee if the Pebble mine partners would oppose increased protection for salmon habitat. Magee said the bill doesn't deal with that issue.

“I don't view the legislation as addressing water quality standards. I view it as addressing use of water for certain environmental purposes,” Magee said.

In Naknek, a community in the Bristol Bay Borough, the majority of commercial salmon harvesters and sport lodge operators who spoke endorsed the bill. Several said the state should toughen water quality standards, but opposed the drastic limits the bill would impose on commercial development of any size.

“This bill doesn't fix any problems. If it's water quality that you're worried about you might take a look at those regulations and tweak the regulations. This bill discriminates against who can use he water and who can't,” said Myra Olsen, a retired commercial harvester and deputy mayor of the Lake and Peninsula Borough.

Hearings were also held in Dillingham Sept. 26.