Dan Sullivan

We’re writing this together with roughly 100 years of living and fishing in Bristol Bay. We’ve seen the highs and lows of the seasons and truly appreciate life in communities where solid agreements are still made with a handshake. Which is why Dan Sullivan’s insincerity on the Pebble mine is beyond disappointing.

Bristol Bay is irreplaceable. Its wild salmon runs are the largest in the world, host tens of thousands of jobs, feed hundreds of thousands of people and anchor a way of life built over generations. What happens in Bristol Bay is important to virtually every Alaskan. Except, apparently, Sen. Dan Sullivan, who continues to pocket campaign money from those who’d destroy it.

Planned as the largest open-pit copper mine in North America, the Pebble mine would dynamite the very heart of the Bay’s salmon spawning grounds, poisoning the habitat, a way of life and a fishery generating more than $2 billion a year. A broad consensus of Alaskans has fought the mine since even before our late Gov. Jay Hammond declared he “couldn’t think of a worse place to put a mine unless it were in my kitchen.”

Coastal communities, tribes, and subsistence, commercial and recreational fishermen all agree Pebble is the wrong mine in the wrong place. So did the Environmental Protection Agency in a series of rulings aimed at stopping the project. But the insatiable hunger for copper brought on by multibillion-dollar investments in artificial intelligence has refired big-money interest in Pebble, and seemingly refired Dan Sullivan’s interest too.

Over the years, Sen. Sullivan accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the former CEO of the Pebble Partnership, Tom Collier. Collier was caught on tape bragging about his ties to Alaska politicians, saying Sullivan wouldn’t stand in the mine’s way.

When that story was reported, Sullivan responded by saying he’d donate those campaign contributions to charity. But he never did, and continued to accept donations as recently as February. Asked why, twice, at Kodiak’s ComFish trade show in April, Sullivan claimed he was too busy to talk about it and hurriedly left the meeting.

If November’s election were only about protecting our wild salmon, Alaska voters would have an easy choice. Mary Peltola is a lifelong Alaskan who grew up fishing the Kuskokwim, where, in the words of a friend, “her dancing shoes were Xtratufs and her family fished for 10,000 years.” Her work in support of healthy salmon stocks is unwavering.

But November’s vote is about more than salmon. Elected to Congress after Don Young’s death in 2022, Mary Peltola saw the business of government in D.C. up close and realized Alaska deserves better. She won’t be cozying up to special interests or anyone else intent on plundering the country for personal wealth.

In November, we have a chance to chart a different course by electing a fisherman who will put Alaska first. Alaskans and the U.S. Senate need a fighter, a real Alaskan, who will restore and develop our fisheries, take on corruption and defend the Alaska way of life.

It’s time to retire Dan Sullivan and put Mary Peltola to work in the U.S. Senate.

Fritz Johnson and Jerry Liboff are both fishermen in Dillingham.