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Food Retail Industry Flexes Its Muscle for Alaska’s Bristol Bay
Salmon consumers everywhere will be happy today! The Food Marketing Institute (FMI), which represents a whopping 26,000 retail food stores, and $680 billion in annual revenue, has spoken out on behalf of protecting Alaska's Bristol Bay fishery - the world's largest wild sockeye salmon fishery.
In a recent letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), FMI expressed its support for the study currently underway to determine the suitability of large-scale development in Bristol Bay, including the proposed Pebble Mine.
It makes sense. The Bristol Bay salmon fishery is an important part of our nation's food supplies.
So hats off to FMI and its 1500 members for its support for sustainable fisheries. The EPA study is expected in late April 2012. So, stay tuned. This important scientific assessment will help determine future actions to protect Bristol Bay.
And, go enjoy some Bristol Bay wild salmon.
Tagged with: bristol bay, anglo american, pebble mine, food marketing institute
Fish deformities linked to selenium from mining operation on Wyoming, Idaho border
A research team hired by the J.R. Simplot Co. has linked selenium discharged from the company's phosphate mine near the Wyoming border to high rates of deformities in trout, including cases of brown trout fry with two heads, missing fins and cranial deformities.
Yes, you read that right.
And, still these phosphate mines are not required to report their releases to the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory - a publicly available database so communities can have information on the amount of pollution released in and near their homes.
And, what's worse, the company is asking for an exemption from water quality standards for two selenium polluted streams near Simplots Smoky Canyon Mine in Idaho.
The "phosphate patch" in this region is notorious for the number of livestock deaths associated with selenium pollution.
For more information, read this great piece. And, to read our comments to the EPA to require phosphate mines to report its toxic discharges to the TRI, read here.
Tagged with: epa, phosphate mining, idaho, selenium, simplot, toxicity
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