Water use bill goes back to drawing board

A bill in the Alaska Legislature that would place severe restrictions on water use in the Bristol Bay area is undergoing revision by its sponsor, Rep. Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham. House Bill 134, was motivated by concerns about the possible development of Northern Dynasty's Pebble mine, but many of those who testified to the House Special Committee on Fisheries said it could block all other forms of development and even subsistence activities. New additions to a committee substitute version of the bill exempt unincorporated communities, transportation projects, energy projects and seafood processing from the prohibitions on water use.

Meanwhile, Alaska's Board of Fisheries decided not to support a proposal to advocate a fish refuge in the Bristol Bay area. That proposal received extensive public testimony and input from state agencies, and the board determined that the best course of action was to maintain a committee to work with Northern Dynasty and the state and federal agencies to ensure protections of the state's fish and wildlife resources.

Dozens of people spoke in person and on the telephone during the legislative committee hearings Feb. 28, March 2 and March 5, and many more submitted written testimony. Approximately 305 people spoke or sent written testimony in favor of the bill, and about 30 opposed the bill, according to Louie Flora, an aide to the fisheries committee. Those in favor included 150 people who signed a petition initiated by the city of New Stuyahok.

"I bring this bill forward knowing that it's not just the Pebble mine out there in southwest Alaska, the whole area is very rich in mineral deposits and you could say that maybe the Pebble mine is the tip of the iceberg," Edgmon told the committee. "My legislation ... really raises the bar for protective measures for salmon," he added.

"Putting one industry above and beyond another industry is a little bit concerning to me," said Rep. Kyle Johansen, R-Ketchikan. "I understand the emotional attachment in your district to the fishing industry. We had a similar attachment to the timber industry in Ketchikan," he added.

Bill would impact DNR's water rights program

HB 134 would have a significant impact on the Department of Natural Resources' water rights program and its land management in the Bristol Bay area, Dick Mylius, acting director of DNR's Division of Mining, Land and Water, told the committee. It would limit where DNR could approve water rights or permits for water use, according to Mylius. "There are no resources in Alaska that can be developed without the use of water," he said, mentioning mineral exploration, recreation, erosion control structures and fish weirs as examples of projects that would be affected.

"I, for one, would be a lot more comfortable with the rigorousness of the permitting process if the permitting process wasn't in our Department of Natural Resources," said Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Kodiak, referring to former Gov. Frank Murkowski's 2003 decision to move the Office of Habitat Management and Permitting from the Department of Fish and Game to DNR. LeDoux said that she would prefer that office to be back in Fish and Game. The Alaska Miners Association strongly supports the move to DNR, because it has streamlined the permitting process.

Testifier: fishing in decline

The fishing industry in Bristol Bay is in decline and the area needs development, according to Lorianne Rawson, an Alaska Native and setnet commercial fisherman from South Naknek.

"Of course, you always hear about the very few fishermen who do extremely well, however, they are just a few," she told the committee.

"In addition to low runs and low fish prices, the Alaska Board of Fish placed more and more restrictions on our local setnetters.

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If you were in our shoes, wouldn't you support any kind of natural resource development, especially like the Pebble project?" she asked.

The Pebble project has hired more locals in the past few years than the fishing industry did in 120 years, Rawson said.

Rae Belle Whitcomb from Dillingham spoke in support of HB 134. "My family lived off the land for many years," she said. "Every drop of water that's used out there has a correlating effect. It affects what we drink, what we eat, what we bathe in. ... One drop of the wrong chemical out there is going to have a child a few years down the road with maybe no limbs, or maybe not even survive. ... We can't go to the grocery stores like you guys have in here, we eat the food, we eat the caribou, we eat the moose, we eat the berries, and there's a lot of work that's generated from that." If local people want to work for the lodges in the region, they can do that too, Whitcomb said.

Senate bill proposes refuge

HB 134 and a bill in the Senate that proposes a refuge named after former Gov. Jay Hammond in the area could have a devastating effect on subsistence, Trefon Angasan, a board member of the Alaska Peninsula Corp. and contractor with Northern Dynasty, told the committee. "When you classify this area, the 22 million acres, into a refuge, you still have subsistence use, but you level the playing field with the other user groups, and then everybody will be competing for the resource," he said. Village corporations would lose the opportunity to develop the land they obtained in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, he warned.

"In this case it's like killing a gnat with a sledgehammer, because you're going to kill the mine, which is a gnat," Angasan said. "The subsistence users will lose, mark my words, we're going to be back here in 50 years telling you that the subsistence users have lost ... because they've given up their priority." Rep. Edgmon responded that his bill is not intended to have any negative impact on subsistence.

"We have been promised land and an ability to support ourselves and to be a producer and not a parasite to you guys here in Juneau, that's our goal," said Glen Alsworth, the mayor of the Lake and Peninsula Borough. Alsworth would vote to table the bill, he told the committee. "It needs a lot more discussion," he said. "I'm for net gain, I think we ought to have better salmon, we ought to have enhanced habitat, and we can have economic development as well. It can happen."

Ralph Angasan from King Salmon, president of Alaska Peninsula Corp., which owns about 400,000 acres of land in the Bristol Bay area, spoke in opposition to the bill. "We want our children's children to continue to live and work at home in Bristol Bay," he said. "HB 134 would strip any economic or social reason for us to remain. ... Communities on the Nushagak would be prohibited from any extraordinary growth or need for water or discharges."

If the bill passes, Alaska Peninsula Corp. shareholders could be fined for riding four-wheelers over bogs in summer, causing adverse effects like tire tracks, Angasan said. "Increasing the pressure on us would only increase the outward migration," he added. "HB 134 goes too far, every stream, every bog, every aquifer, every swamp and lake that is in any way interrelated or connected ... is off limits under 134. Any use other than for drinking water is prohibited unless it is already permitted."

Bill called 'economic and cultural suicide'

The bill is "economic and cultural suicide," according to Gary Nielson from Kokhanok. "Our family is lucky, we all work, we own businesses, and still we're just at or above the poverty level," he told the committee. "Even if it's not a mine, if there's something else, we can't restrict ourselves on any type of opportunity in our area. We are just not a playground," he said.

Randy Zimin, an Alaska Native, commercial fisherman and subsistence user, also spoke against the bill. "Right now we're surrounded by reserves and parks," he said. "This bill of Bryce's has us living on a tiny strip of land. ... My house, under this bill, will be inside a refuge, where it wasn't before." After spending two days in Juneau, Zimin said he had heard lots of talk about protecting the fish, but little about protecting the people and their right to live in the Bristol Bay area. "If we don't have some economic opportunity, the area's going to die," he added.

Raymond Wassillie, an Alaska Peninsula Corp. shareholder from Newhalen, said that he had seen poverty, alcoholism and drug abuse in his village. "We need an infrastructure with jobs for everyday people to come and go and do their normal things in life, and when Northern Dynasty came in and brought some jobs it lifted the hearts of the people ... and I thank them for it," he said. "I'm not in support of this bill, of 134, because it's just making it too complicated, and I think it should be tabled and maybe a different avenue found," he added.

HB 134 is "as anti-development as any bill could ever be," according to Eva Nielson King, a commercial fisherman from South Naknek. "The villages such as South Naknek will be choked from developing any infrastructure in the immediate future," she said. "You cannot restrict and take away our rights. ... If you do it is a taking and the state will find itself in court, without question." The Legislature should be prepared to provide more welfare checks if the bill passes, Nielson King told the committee.

"Gone are the days when as commercial fishermen we could make a decent annual living from it," Nielson King said. "The fishing industry has been polluting our country for over 100 years. ... Come and take a look at our beaches after fishing season, why isn't the state concerned about these polluters?" she asked. "This isn't about safeguards at all, it's about stopping development."

Kevin Jensen from Pedro Bay also opposed the introduction of new restrictions. "Our tribe is preparing to begin a waterfront project that we have been in need of for some time. We're also trying to finish our new landfill, (for) which we require a bridge to reach the site," he said. Jensen wondered whether these and other activities such as the use of ATVs, or dragging trees across a stream to make a crossing would be banned by the bill.

"To use our lands and waters as a fulcrum to leverage this body to pass laws that will forever change the way we live is wrong," Jensen said. "I don't believe this bill was created so much to protect our waters and fish as it was to shortsightedly tilt at windmills that have not yet been built. I implore you to oppose House Bill 134, not just for my tribe, but for my descendants."

Support from fishing industry

Nick Lee from Seattle, who has been fishing in Bristol Bay for 18 years, spoke in favor of the bill. The possibility of a massive tailings pond straddling the ridge that divides the Kvichak and Nushagak watersheds "scares the hell out of me," Lee told the committee. "Small amounts of copper, sulfuric acid and cyanide can be very detrimental," he said, reminding legislators to think about the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. "One of the biggest selling points is our pristine, pure water where our fish currently live," Lee said. The market for all Alaska salmon would be affected if anything happened to Bristol Bay salmon, because consumers would not differentiate, he added.

It is hard to believe that there are no special protections already in place for the Bristol Bay fishery, Lindsey Bloom from Juneau said. Bloom is a Bristol Bay driftnet permit holder and was representing the Bristol Bay Driftnetters' Association at the hearings. "My experience last season was that I fished in the Naknek and then in the Kvichak district. ... I had so many fish in my net, I almost sank my boat," she said. "That speaks to the health of the salmon run and the systems up there," Bloom added. Legislators should support HB 134, she told the committee.

"I support House Bill 134 because salmon is our most precious resource," said Michelle Ravenmoon from Port Alsworth. "As an Alaska Native I am tired and ashamed of being looked at as a victim who comes from a place with no economic hope. ... I went to college and I am employed by my home region. ... We do not need giant corporations. ... This is the only home I have, and if it is destroyed, I don't have anywhere else to go."

Biologist Garvin Bucaria spoke in support of the bill too, expressing concern that the residue of minerals in Pebble's tailings facility would enter the food chain.

"I can only say that the aquatic resources, that is, aquatic insects, are wonderfully adapted to low oxygen levels at the bottom of lakes, in that they have hemoglobin in their systems, and going through the detritus and other material at the bottom of these lakes they incorporate these substances into their bodies," he said.

"They are consumed by the various tropic levels and the food web is obviously well understood, and the point being is that these materials will eventually find their way into the entire ecosystem over many, many years."

Robin Samuelson from Dillingham said he would support a modified version of HB 134 that would allow onshore oil and gas development. Samuelson said he had served on various boards, including the Alaska Board of Fisheries and as an advisor to the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission, and that he had three guiding principles: "One is no giving up on habitat and ecosystem protections. Number two was conservation of the resources. And my third guiding principle was Alaskans first." Samuelson made many enemies during his time on the controversial boards, he added, but ultimately the resource was preserved.

Under Gov. Murkowski it looked like the state needed to develop at any cost, Samuelson told the committee.

"We are scared out here," he said.

"We don't want something that's going to be developed out here that's going to be polluting us longer than the pyramids of Egypt that's been around.

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Yes, it's going to give us 50 years of jobs, but we need the added protection, because water is life." Samuelson noted that his father was a prospector and that he doesn't oppose all mining.

Asked by Rep.

LeDoux if he would feel happier if the Office of Habitat Management and Permitting were back in the Department of Fish and Game, Samuelson said that he would, adding that the move to DNR was like "letting the fox into the chicken coop."

Don't bury us with Hammond

"With all due respect, Governor Hammond has passed on.

Please don't bury us with him by adopting these two legislative proposals," said Mark Angasan, an Alaska Native commercial fisherman and subsistence user from King Salmon.

Angasan suggested that the Permanent Fund or a state park be named after Gov. Hammond instead of the refuge proposed in the Senate.

"Don't rob my grandchildren and our region and people of new economic opportunities because some legislator wants to honor his name by saying this is what he would have wanted ...

He supported economic development," Angasan said.

"We live in a cash economy, we need more than the ability to pick berries and put fish in the freezer," he added.

Igiugig Village Council is strongly opposed to any further restrictions on resource use, Dan Salmon, a Lake and Peninsula Borough assembly member, told the committee. He suggested a "PLO" or "payment in lieu of opportunity" of $500,000 be made annually to every community affected by HB 134. "This is a drop in the bucket compared to the potential fiscal opportunity we are giving up," Salmon said. "This proposal 134 is ill-founded and conceived. ... Reject it in its entirety," he urged.

Representatives of several organizations also testified about HB 134, including the Alaska Miners Association, the Resource Development Council, Truth About Pebble and Bristol Bay Native Corp. (against the bill) and the Renewable Resources Coalition, the Bristol Bay Alliance and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance (for the bill).

At the end of the hearings, the chairman of the committee, Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer, reiterated the main concerns that had been raised about the bill by supporters: its unintended consequences; the vagueness of some definitions regarding water users; and the possibility of legal and constitutional problems. Rep. Edgmon agreed that his bill needs to be rewritten and is currently working on a new committee substitute, which he expects will not be ready until the fall.

"There are so many different ramifications, it's going to take some time," Edgmon told Mining News. The biggest hurdle will be the constitutional aspects of the bill, Edgmon said, which he has some ideas on how to deal with, but he isn't making those ideas public until they are finalized. From the hearings Edgmon got the message that "a lot of people are hurting in the region" and that "the issue is certainly multifaceted," but solving the problem of unemployment won't be easy. "If there was a simple answer then somebody would already have pursued it," he added.