Lake Clark National Park and Preserve
About Lake Clark | Risks to Lake Clark | What You Can Do
Most Urgent Threat: Industrial Mining Explorations on Adjacent Lands
“I can’t imagine a worse location for a mine of this type unless it was right in my kitchen here at Lake Clark.”
–- Jay Hammond, former Governor of Alaska
Lake Clark: crown jewel of Bristol Bay
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve straddles the Alaska Range in between Denali and Katmai National Parks and Preserves. Its dynamic landscape boasts active volcanoes and earthquake fault lines, glaciers, 130 miles of coastline, 6,000 miles of rivers, and protects numerous large lakes, including the park’s namesake Lake Clark, the sixth largest lake in Alaska. Active volcanoes and earthquake fault lines? That’s right, the park is part of the Pacific Ocean’s seismically active “Ring of Fire” and Mount Redoubt, at 10,197 feet, has kept southcentral Alaska on alert since March 2009 when it began its most recent eruption phase since 1989, dusting lands north and west of the volcano with ash, including Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula. See pictures of the Redoubt volcano eruption in our photo slideshow.
Wild salmon anchor the ecosystem, economy and cultural traditions
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve’s ecosystem is pristine and the park’s primary purpose is to protect its portion of the Bristol Bay watershed for the perpetuation of the sockeye salmon fishery. Southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed is a legendary stronghold for wild salmon, prized for trophy rainbow trout fishing, and home to the world’s largest commercial sockeye salmon fishery. Generations of Alaska Natives and rural residents live throughout the region, subsisting off bounties of abundant moose, caribou, berries, and fish, maintaining close ties with the natural world and the rich traditions of their ancestors. Sport fishing and brown bear viewing are just some of the activities that draw visitors to explore this roadless region, which many consider to be the epitome of true Alaska wilderness.
An industrial mining district alongside Lake Clark national park?
The past decade has marked the start of a modern-day gold rush in remote Bristol Bay. Over 1,000 square miles of state mining claims have been staked since 2003 on lands directly adjacent to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, and industrial mining explorations are in progress. Enormous deposits of gold and copper have been identified in one of the worst possible locations: the salmon-rich headwaters of Bristol Bay. The most advanced of the multiple exploration projects is the proposed Pebble Mine, and it has emerged as the most controversial and divisive mining effort in the typically pro-development state of Alaska.
“Perhaps it was God who put these two great resources right next to each other, just to see what people would do with them.”
-- John Shively, chief executive of Pebble Ltd. Partnership
If built, Pebble Mine could become the largest open-pit mine in North America (only 14 miles from Lake Clark national park). It could also become a catalyst for industrialization of 1,000 square miles of mining claims staked since 2003 along the west side of the park, all of which are precariously located in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, one of the last remaining intact wild sockeye salmon fisheries on Earth. In addition, during the final days of 2008 the Bureau of Land Management finalized plans to open over 1 million acres of federal public lands in the Bristol Bay watershed to mining, a move that could multiply the prospects of developing additional mineral deposits and compound the impacts of a future Pebble mining district on lands near Lake Clark and Katmai national parks. Pebble mine’s developers plan to begin submitting designs and permit applications in late 2009 or 2010, but their preliminary designs raise questions of whether Pebble’s potential risks may be greater than the rewards.
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