Docket #EPA-HQ-ORD-2013-0189

Dear Environmental Protection Agency,

Thank you for the diligent work, transparent process, and extensive scientific review reflected in the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment, which evaluates the destructive impacts of large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska.

Your report makes clear that we cannot wait any longer to protect Bristol Bay's natural resources, Native peoples, commercial fishing jobs and industry, and tremendous recreational opportunities from the unavoidable consequences of mega-mining. Bristol Bay and its healthy sockeye fishery support 14,000 jobs across multiple industries and generates more than $1 billion in economic activity every year. It also supplies nearly half of the global supply of sockeye salmon.

It is time for the Pebble Partnership to stop playing games and politics with what are clearly unacceptable impacts. The EPA's Assessment finds that even without a catastrophe or series of harmful spills, up to 90 miles of streams and up to 4,300 acres of wetlands, which would reduce vital salmon habitat, would be destroyed by mining the deposit. That alone should be enough to stop this project. Add in the unsupportable notion that up to 23 billion tons of toxic mine waste will be stored, treated, and monitored "in perpetuity," and it becomes clear that action is required to protect Bristol Bay now.

I ask that you immediately initiate use of the Clean Water Act to restrict inappropriate development activities such as the proposed Pebble Mine, while allowing reasonable development to proceed.

Sincerely,