EPA's comprehensive Bristol Bay watershed assessment needs to be completed and issued in final as soon as possible, and EPA must then proceed promptly to protect the region under its federal Clean Water Act authority.

All in all, it was another tough year for the Pebble Mine. And, in the coming year, look for more of the same. Bristol Bay is no place for large-scale mining, and the Pebble Mine will eventually be stopped. It's only a matter of time.

As EPA's scientific review found, the Pebble Mine would devastate the region -- its wild salmon fishery, its people, its communities, and its economy.

We shouldn't gamble what we can't afford to lose, and we can't afford to lose the Bristol Bay fishery. Period.

I care less about what people call themselves than which side they're on. In fact, I spend much of my time these days working with people in Alaska who don't consider themselves environmentalists -- and have no aspirations to be.

NRDC is committed to do all that it can, for as long as it takes, to ensure that the voices of the residents of Bristol Bay are heard around the world and that their determination to say "no" to the Pebble Mine isn't ignored by Anglo American and its partners.

All of these poll results -- together with last month's approval in the Lake and Peninsula Borough of the "Save Our Salmon" initiative -- are the latest evidence that the Pebble Mine is a failure in the making.