Obama Bars Oil Industry From Alaska’s Bristol Bay | Environment News Service.
President Barack Obama today designated the waters of Bristol Bay as off limits to oil and gas leasing for exploration, development or production. This action safeguards one of the nation’s most productive fisheries and preserves an ecologically rich area of the Bering Sea that is vital to the commercial fishing and tourism economy and to Alaska Native communities.
The eastern-most arm of the Bering Sea, Bristol Bay is 250 miles long and 180 miles wide at its mouth. Many of Alaska’s major rivers flow into the bay, and all five species of Pacific salmon: pink, chum, sockeye, coho and king, return to Bristol Bay to spawn in these rivers.
Bristol Bay is at the heart one of the world’s most valuable fisheries, helping to provide 40 percent of America’s wild-caught seafood and support a $2 billion annual fishing industry.
The beautiful and remote area is also an economic engine for tourism in Alaska, driving $100 million in recreational fishing and tourism activity every year.
Bristol Bay hosts the largest runs of wild sockeye salmon in the world, and provides important habitat for many species, including the threatened Stellar’s eider, sea otters, seals, walruses, Beluga and Killer whales, and the endangered North Pacific Right Whale.
