Resource Use and Environmental Futures

Water Cultures in Conflict at Pebble Mine, Bristol Bay, Alaska

People: Monty Simus

This project applies an interdisciplinary lens to investigation of one of the world’s most emblematic water and environmental conflicts, using it as an index to inform future debate and decision-making. 

Pebble Mine is the second-largest gold deposit in the world and if exploited, will yield up to $500 billion. However, it is also at the headwaters of two of the five major river drainages that supply Bristol Bay, the world’s largest salmon run. Salmon underpin around 75% of all local jobs and the subsistence lifestyles of many Alaskan Indigenous peoples. The United Tribes of Bristol Bay strongly oppose the 10 billion tons of toxic waste they say the mine will generate, waste that will need to be treated in perpetuity. 

Drawing upon canvassed and crowd-sourced interviews, as well as corporate, legal, NGO and tribal documents held at the University of Juneau, it brings approaches to resources as articulated by Indigenous leaders, mine and resource workers, state and federal officials, corporations, environmentalists, NGOs and community groups into critical and creative tension.