Double Trouble: Pebble Mine Threatens Two Beluga Populations
Posted March 31, 2010 in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
We’ve been talking a lot here at Switchboard about the Pebble mine: a monstrous open-pit copper and gold mine that would cut a wound two-miles wide and 2,000 feet deep into Alaska's wild and pristine landscape. The mine, which would be operated by the huge British conglomerate Anglo American, is opposed overwhelmingly by local residents and by Alaska's Native communities. It also threatens the natural resources of the Bristol Bay watershed, including an incredible array of wild creatures from grizzly bears, to wolverines, to caribou.
One animal equally worthy of our concern is the beluga whale, also known as the “white whale” or “sea canary,” because of its tremulous, musical calls. There are only five populations of beluga whales in Alaska, and the Pebble mine threatens two of them: the populations in Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet.
How does the mine accomplish this trick? For the Cook Inlet population, already one of the most endangered whale populations in the United States with only a few hundred individuals left, it’s development. As part of Anglo-American’s plan to get gold and copper from the mine site to market, the company has proposed the construction a massive set of infrastructure in Iniskin Bay, so that it can ship its minerals from Cook Inlet, which already hosts the Port of Anchorage to the North. In order to make this possible, Anglo-American will have to construct a marine terminal, roads, and a slurry pipeline. Iniskin Bay is one of the few places in lower Cook Inlet where beluga whales are seen and it has been identified by federal wildlife scientist as part of habitat “critical” to the whale. Needless to say, industrial development in Iniskin Bay, including increased ship traffic through the lower Inlet generally, does not bode well for belugas there.
As for the Bristol Bay belugas (a healthier population of about 1,600), Pebble mine threatens one of Bristol Bay’s most important resources, its salmon, including the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. Belugas in Bristol Bay rely on these salmon for food, particularly in the spring, when young fish migrate out into the open ocean. Plopping a huge open-pit mine, along with 10 million billion tons of toxic mine tailings, wastewater, and the construction of massive earthen damns in the headwaters of the Bay, near where salmon go to spawn is, to put it mildly, not a good thing. Indeed, concern over the impacts to salmon runs has driven much of the opposition to the mine by local residents.
Simply put, endangered beluga whales in Cook Inlet can’t take another major industrial development in their essential habitat; and beluga whales in Bristol Bay, just like its fishing communities, need the salmon runs that the mine threatens. Forty percent of Alaska’s beluga whale populations could be imperiled by the Pebble mine. Anglo-American’s stockholders will be meeting on Earth Day. Sign NRDC’s petition and let them know that beluga whales and all the people and wildlife in Bristol Bay can’t afford this mine.
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Comments
AK'n Ben — Mar 31 2010 08:27 PM
This is despicable. I don't know where you're getting your information, but the Cook Inlet Beluga is RARELY seen in either Iliamna Bay or Iniskin Bay. In fact, if you take the time to read the source this page links to, you will see that in the course of the survey belugas were rarely if ever seen in the area near the potential port.
Additionally, lower Cook Inlet has been proposed as critical habitat, not identified or listed that way. Some would appear to distort the meaning of "Critical Habitat" to include the entire range of a species, no matter how fleeting their time there.
What may be surprising is that highest levels of sightings and densities are found nearest the greatest amount of human development.
Please, take the time to read the the documentation and make an honest attempt at understanding the situation before crying that the sky is falling.
Andrew Wetzler — Mar 31 2010 09:28 PM
Thanks for writing Ben. You make three points in your comment. Let me try to respond to all of them.
First, you are correct that beluga whales are more often seen in the upper Cook Inlet than the lower Inlet, where Iniskin Bay is located. However, sighting of belugas in Iniskin Bay and the waters surrounding it is a regular occurrence. In their comments on the whales proposed critical habitat, for example, the Pebble Partnership itself states that "groups of up to 14 whales" were cited "in Iliamna, Iniskin, and Chinitna bays and near the Iniskin Islands" in 2007. (http://akrdc.org/issues/other/esa/belugas/maccay.pdf.) In fairness, whales were not seen during similar surveys in other years. The IUCN also identifies Iniskin Bay as an area where beluga whales were seen between 1993 and 2000. (http://www.iucnredlist.org/documents/attach/61442.pdf).
Now, we can argue about how significant these numbers are to the species, but I would assert this is more than sufficient evidence to show that belugas make regular use of the Bay. And, when you have a endangered population of whales numbering in the low hundreds of individuals, caution is warranted.
Second, you are correct that the beluga's critical habitat designation is a proposal from the federal goverment, but it has, indeed, been "identified" in the proposal as an area "essential" to the species (thats what a critical habitat proposal is).
What did those scientist say about the importance of the the Bay? "Dive behavior indicates beluga whales make relatively deeper dives (e.g., to the bottom) and are at the surface less frequently in Area 2, and hence are less frequently observed (Hobbs et al., 2005). It is believed these deep dives are associated with feeding during the fall and winter months (NMFS unpubl. data). The combination of deeper dives, consistent use of certain areas, and stomach content analyses indicate that belugas whales are actively feeding in these areas."
Finally, you are also right that belugas are often seen near developed areas, such as the Port of Anchorage and even its sewage treatment plant. However, just because an animal is seen near a developed area doesn't mean that development has no effect on it. Many animals will hazard an area, for example, to find needed food supplies. Again, I would simply point out that there is a reason this population's numbers have crashed. Perhaps all that development you imply has little effect on the whales has something to do with it?
AK'n Ben — Apr 1 2010 10:03 PM
Andrew – Thanks for getting back so quickly on this.
I’d like to take issue with a few things you’ve noted here. First, to call the sightings of beluga whales in Iniskin Bay a regular occurrence is quite a stretch. I appreciate the bit of fairness you give by noting that most surveys flown in Iniskin Bay do not see whales. Further to that comment, and from the same source (http://www.akrdc.org/issues/other/esa/belugas/maccay.pdf), “In a compilation of opportunistic sightings from the National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML), only 18 sightings are shown in the Iniskin and Iliamna/Cottonwood bays over the last four decades (Vate-Bratstrom et al. 2010).”
Yes, whales were seen in Iniskin Bay during the surveys between 1993-2000 and yes, a group was seen in 2007 by marine mammal survey teams working for Pebble. Similarly, if you were in the Los Angeles area between 1993-2000, and once in 2007, you may have seen me. However, I wouldn’t consider my occasional trips through LA during that time as indicative of “regular use” of the area.
Regarding the critical habitat proposal, I think we may have a fundamental disagreement on the definition of critical habitat. In my mind the entire range of a species does not indicate its critical habitat. The critical habitat is what the species needs simply to survive – in this case the critical habitat would arguably be limited to upper Cook Inlet, where the belugas feed and calve. By listing the entire range (listing everywhere the species has been seen – ever), I would argue that one effectively dilutes the significance of the listing itself.
If we tumble all the way down the slope of range as an indicator of essential habitat, one might argue that outer space is critical habitat for monkeys and dogs – we’ve got video of these animals in this area from the 1950’s and 1960’s. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnvDz-wD7WQ)
Finally, you imply that that the development of Upper Cook Inlet (by which I suppose you mean the port of Anchorage) may have something to do with a decline in beluga numbers. These belugas may “hazard” developed areas like the port for needed food, but if we start talking about that we may also have to talk about fishing in upper Cook Inlet, and as an Alaskan I know enough not to touch that button. I would simply argue that the issue is much more complicated than a bullet point that looks good on a fundraising pamphlet.
Andrew Wetzler — Apr 2 2010 09:57 AM
Ben, it sounds like we may have to agree to disagree about the significance of Iniskin Bay, so I’ll make this my last comment on this thread. I did want to make a few points in response, however.
With regard to the frequency of beluga whale sightings in the Bay, I would only note two things. First, although saying “18 times in four decades” may not sounds like a lot, it actually averages out to fairly regular use. I realize, of course, that the distribution isn’t even, but 18 sighting in 40 years is a sighting, on average, about every other year. Add to that the fact that, by Pebble’s own admission, these were “opportunistic” sightings (i.e., researchers’ were not looking for belugas), that beluga whales can be difficult to spot, especially in choppy water, and that NMFS has stated (see my comment above) that belugas in the lower Inlet are probably undercounted due to their longer dive times during feeding. In short, I think a picture of use far more frequent than you are inclined to credit is apparent.
Second, your LA analogy made me chuckle, but let’s put it another way: there are only about 300 beluga whales left in Cook Inlet. If there were only 300 people left in Alaska and, in any given year, I had about 50% chance of spotting one of them in Los Angeles, I would conclude that Los Angeles was important to Alaskans, just as biologists have done here.
Finally, on critical habitat: critical habitat actually is defined by the ESA to mean areas a species needs to recover (that is, to get off the federal endangered species list) not merely survive.
paul callicoat — Apr 3 2010 09:19 PM
I'd suggest Ak'n Ben go down to visit the big hole down in Nevada.See how it has impacted the desert water tables for the next 1000 yrs.Ranchers going under because the water tables are now so deep they can't drill down deep enough to reach it and nothing to water the cattle. Ben,you are a paid shill for the miners and muddy the water with quibbling about how often the Buluga uses the bay while all along ignoring the giant hole these guys are going to dig while at the same time damning up 3 of the biggest wild and scenic salmon rivers in the world.Now consider how these miners are going to disappear like so many cockroaches when the lights go on,when one of those heap leach piles start to leak.Or worse yet,one of those 700 ft high damns blows out and sends tons of toxic stuff like arsenic and lead and copper sulfates down into the bays.How about just requiring Anglo to post a $Trillion Dollars in Bank of Alaska and then require they take every last bit of overburden and ore out of the area and back to their own country?Good ol' jolly England will be happy to spread this "wealth"all over their countryside.We will also require them to give us additional money to remove the rails and lines to the ports and restore the land to not impact the salmon .I think copper and gold will no longer be a magnet for any other plunderers when the gold is really costing them what it will ultimatly going to cost us,they won't have gold fever for long.They will lose their lust for gold when forced to really pay for the gold.Gold can't make a fish,bear or any other creature.It can kill these creatures and once gone all the gold in alaska won't restore the loss. Oh,yeah Ben when you call someone dispicable,please look in the mirror.
Mathew Cannava — Apr 7 2010 12:30 PM
Ben:
Bottom line, IGNORING the overwhelming historical data which says this mine is a future environmental disaster:
The people of the region, by a vast majority, don't want it. You preach cooperation with "stakeholders." The stakeholders don't want this mine.
Why is Anglo and PLP still pursuing this if they believe their own rhetoric, which says they will work with and honor their stakeholder's convictions?
...and why are you anonymous? :)