Not too long ago...
Well it was actually several years ago, I helped author a document concerning resource development in Bristol Bay. In this document We encouraged folks to pressure a foreign corporation to allow all stakeholders a 'seat at the table' when it came to their plans to construct what may be the largest open pit mining facility ever in the tundra that contains thousands of miles of salmon and trout spawning streams. However, the hardcore professional protestors took issue with it and even publicly chastised me on my position and have since excluded me from practically everything as related to the 'No Pebble' efforts. Heck one of the now more prominent anti's even took the chance to 1/2 drunkenly and persistently ask me during a public event if I was working for 'Pebble'. I of course laughed at her and did my best to assure her that my opinion opposing the continued exploration and eventual development of a mine at Frying Pan Lake hadn't changed. But that wasn't good enough. To ice the cake... my position of wanting to address the causation of Pebble has also pretty much blackballed me in most politico circles around Bristol Bay.
This is where the real crux of the matter lies folks... If those 'fish' were really sustaining Bristol Bay, people wouldn't be lining up
for the get cash quick jobs that the resource industry offers regional residents. What's more is the fact that the residents living nearest to the more than a few industrial sized claims were excluded from participating in the now federally controlled fisheries and from reaping the residual benefit of the leasing of fish quotas by the regional CDQ, the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation. Despite a century old participation in the commercial fisheries, the federal government arbitrarily cut these folks out of essentially having much say or benefit in the fisheries.
Currently its difficult to see much difference between the fishing and resource extraction industries in terms of sustainable benefit for Bristol Bay. The majority of all the fish resource leaves Bristol Bay and Alaska, leaving behind communities that can't survive within the traditions. Bristol Bay suffers from high rates of unemployment, crime and substance abuse while the resources go elsewhere leaving very little behind. A strong & sustainable economy based upon traditional means could go a long way to address these societal woes, but We have to take back the control of those resources and demand that the primary benefits be allocated here in Bristol Bay, not Seattle.