Letters: Let’s hear it for the EPA on Bristol Bay

Re “EPA protection of Alaska bay puts new mine at risk,” March 1

Maybe the headline should have indicated that open-pit mines, mountain-top removal and fossil-fuel leaks put us all at risk. But as long as profit prevails, we all face danger.

If Alaska’s Bristol Bay is not protected, what will the future look like for the world’s most productive sockeye salmon fishery and the people who rely on the fishing industry?

Tom Collier — chief executive of the Pebble Limited Partnership, which wants to build North America’s largest open-pit mine near Bristol Bay — says his company will prevail. But there is a long-term future being addressed that will extend far beyond the short-term profits that this mine would generate.

Our planet is suffering long-term damage because of activities like open-pit mining; we need to wake up to this fact and protect what is left of our only home. It shouldn’t take endless studies to read the writing on the wall.

Beverly Franco

Monterey Park

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has stood up to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon industry, a huge decision worthy of the front page, rather than where it was buried in the paper.

Robert Redford has been pushing this issue for three years now; we are all, I hope, aware of the tremendous threat posed by the Pebble Mine, which would destroy the salmon fishing industry as well as all the pristine beauty of this Alaskan region.

This is indeed very good news, and it gives me hope that the very idea of this horrendous environmental threat will finally cease to exist. Let’s hear it for the EPA.

Linda Winters

Culver City

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