Alannah Hurley Wins Goldman Prize for Bristol Bay Mine Fight
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- Alannah Hurley led the United Tribes of Bristol Bay in a two-decade fight against the Pebble Mine and was awarded the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America in recognition of this work.
- United Tribes of Bristol Bay petitioned the EPA in 2010 to block large-scale mining in the region, after state officials rewrote land-use plans without tribal consultation and advanced the project despite local opposition.
- EPA issued a rare veto in 2023 under the Clean Water Act to prohibit the Pebble Mine, citing irreversible risks to the Bristol Bay watershed, the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, and Indigenous ways of life.
- Northern Dynasty Minerals proposed the Pebble Mine in 2001, a massive gold and copper open-pit project at the headwaters of two major river systems, which Indigenous communities warned would cause environmental devastation.
- Yup’ik, Dena’ina, and Alutiiq peoples view the land, water, and salmon as inseparable from their cultural, spiritual, and physical survival, and have stewarded the region for thousands of years.
Why it matters: The EPA veto marks a rare victory for tribal-led environmental advocacy, halting a project with billions in potential mineral value to protect a $2 billion annual salmon fishery and the subsistence lifeways of thousands of Indigenous people in southwest Alaska.
