According to one school of thought, it’s a calculation that ought to be left to Alaskans. The Pebble Partnership promises to create jobs and bring in revenue, and the state residents—who will feel the effects either way—should know best whether this would do more long-term good than the protection of salmon stocks and preservation of pristine land. And polls have shown that the majority of Alaskans oppose the mine. An estimated 2.5 billion or more tons of toxic mineral waste would be dredged up at the site; even a tiny proportion of this waste, if leaked into surrounding waters, would chemically alter salmon habitat and threaten the health of the fishery. *

The oft-cited statistic is that “80 percent of Bristol Bay residents” are against it—a number based on data collected between 2007 and 2009, when the Pebble Mine controversy was most fevered. Two independent filmmakers brought attention to the issue with their documentary Red Gold in 2007. The state's most famous politician played both sides of the issue. While campaigning for governor in 2006, Sarah Palin said, “I am a commercial fisherman; my daughter’s name is Bristol,” and “I could not support a project that risks one resource that we know is a given, and that is the world’s richest spawning grounds, over another resource.” But two years later, she said she opposed a state ballot measure to restrict the discharge of toxic waste from new mining operations, which might have stopped the Pebble project from developing further. Some Alaskans took this as a betrayal of her promise to protect Alaska’s fisheries. The measure was defeated.

In 2010, an unlikely alliance of commercial fishermen, native tribes, and concerned citizens decided that their next best hope for stopping the Pebble Mine was to get the federal government to intervene. Even “Redneck Republicans,” as one Alaskan called himself, were concerned that the mine’s promise wasn't enough to risk ruining the salmon fishery. The alliance petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a preliminary investigation of the potential ecological impact of a hypothetical large-scale mining operation in Bristol Bay. The idea was that the agency could step in and shut down the Pebble Mine project by determining, in advance, that it would have "unacceptable" adverse effects on the Bristol Bay watershed.

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act prohibits any construction in navigable waters (e.g., in and around the Bristol Bay watershed) without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Act authorizes the EPA to block permission from being granted. When the EPA responded to the petition from Alaska, it seemed unlikely that the agency would eventually invoke this power. And as the EPA began conducting its scientific study in 2011, the nation's attention shifted to the highly visible debate over Keystone XL.