What’s Athens Got Do with Alaska?

Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA). He represents Georgia’s 10^th Congressional District from Athens, Georgia and chairs the House Science Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight which is looking into the EPA’s watershed assessment of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay Alaska’s headwaters. Pebble Mine would harvest deposits of gold, copper and molybdenum from an open pit. The Anchorage Daily News reports in a recent article, Congressman scolds EPA on its Bristol Bay assessment, that Congressman Broun questioned the intent of the assessment in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “I am troubled by EPA’s vagueness in explaining the purpose of the (assessment) particularly since it appears as though the agency is positioning itself to use the document in any manner it sees fit in the future,” Broun said in the letter. The EPA was asked by Bristol Bay region residents to conduct the assessment but Broun states that the agency should wait until a mine application is submitted.

Athens’ Oconee River Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU) is upset.