The long awaited final scientific assessment of the potential impacts from large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska was released earlier this week by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The pictured painted by the assessment is a grim one for the salmon of Bristol Bay, the ecosystem they drive and the native cultures and modern economies that depend on their survival and abundance.

The assessment states unequivocally that construction of a mine such as Pebble Mine, under the most extensive mining scenario, would result in the total loss of 94 miles of salmon-producing streams simply by virtue of the footprint required for mining operations to take place. Also resulting from the mine footprint would be streamflow alterations over 20 percent or more in 33 miles of streams and the loss of almost 5,000 acres of crucial wetland habitat.

The report goes on to detail a litany of additional negative impacts that could result from mining operations in the region, the majority of which are described by the report as "expected" or "likely" due to comparisons with the history of existing, similar mining operations. Detailed are impacts resulting from leakage during routine operations, wastewater treatment plant failures, spillway releases, culvert failures, pipeline failures, tailings dam failures, truck accidents and more.

Pennsylvania conservatives in the House and Senate have been aggressively seeking to undermine the ability of state agencies to protect wild and endangered species since June of of last year. The mechanisms through which these efforts have been channeled is Pennsylvania House Bill 1576 and Senate Bill 1047, otherwise known as the Endangered Species Act. The most recent revision of HB 1576 has been met by success, passing through the House Game & Fisheries committee in November of this year, and now sits awaiting listing for a vote on the House floor.

If the bill becomes law, it will dramatically diminish the ability of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) and Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) to protect wild trout and endangered species throughout the state by miring the now independent processes of these agencies within a heavily politicized, bureaucratic process that serves to produce the opposite of the effects its proponents use to justify the bills' proposal.