influenced early-on by white salmon-cannery employees of European descent and the latter being heavily populated by military personnel stationed, primarily during Cold War years, at the nearby King Salmon Air Force Station and later by visitors and employees of the nearby Katmai National Park and Preserve. Proposed Pebble Mine A mineral exploration project investigating a large porphyry copper, gold, and molybdenum deposit in the Bristol Bay region has been proposed and may be undertaken by British-Australian Rio Tinto Group and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi. Northern Dynasty Minerals LLC staked a claim on the site in 2001 and with its partners, invested 500 million dollars into the project. The mining company lost all of its partners in 2011 due to increasing government regulations and distrust by its partners. Because of the estimated 10 billion tons of mining waste that must be permanently stored in the area, which is an active earthquake zone, and Rio Tinto's environmental track record, which is seen as poor by many environmental advocacy groups, fears have been raised about the potential impact on the Bristol Bay area and its wildlife and residents. In April 2003, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an assessment of the impact of the proposed mining operations on fisheries, wildlife, and native Alaska tribes. Between 2014 and May 2017, Pebble sued the EPA several times. The company argued the EPA unfairly assumed the scope of the mine before it formally filed mining plans. Northern Dynasty Minerals LLC. accused the government agency of colluding with anti-mine activists to reach its conclusions. In July 2019, the EPA withdrew their preemptive proposed determination to restrict use of the pebble deposit area as a disposal site. In September 2020, while posing as potential investors in the mine an environmental activist group secretly taped conversations with Roland Thiessen, chief executive of Northern Dynasty Minerals, and Tom Collier, chief executive of Pebble Limited Partnership. During the conversations Collier and Thiessen detailed their plans to gain the favor of elected politicians from Juneau to Washington, D.C. to gain a favorable outcome for the approval of the mining operation. The conversations also revealed that while the company is seeking a 20 year permit, Thiessen outlined how it could last another 160 years. See also Bristol Bay Borough Lake and Peninsula Borough Naknek, Alaska References External links Lake & Peninsula Borough Bristol Bay Borough Lake and Peninsula School District Bristol Bay Alliance Bristol