Thank you to The Daily Astorian for covering the 2013 FisherPoets Gathering (Pebble Mine opponents gather during FisherPoets event, Feb. 26). The events were a great success, and they are a huge part of Astorias local heritage.

My family is proud to sponsor FisherPoets Bristol Bay Night at Clementes Restaurant. We understand the deep economic and cultural ties between Bristol Bay, Alaska, and Oregon.

Members of my family are proud to have fished Bristol Bay for more than 100 years. The sustainable commercial salmon fishery of Bristol Bay is an example of something thats working, and there is no way we should consider sacrificing it to a proposed open-pit mine called Pebble.

Pebble may sound innocuous, but when you realize that it would be the largest open pit copper mine in the U.S., placed at the headwaters of our greatest salmon fishery, you realize we stand to lose a lot from one Pebble.

The environmental threats presented by the Pebble Mine are documented by the Environmental Protection Agency in its thorough, scientific Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment. Among its findings, the assessment concludes that the proposed mine site would eliminate up to 87 miles of salmon streams and up to 4,300 acres of salmon spawning habitat.

If built, the Pebble Mine would produce up to 10 billion tons of toxic waste that will have to be treated and contained in perpetuity. We all use copper, but opening a new massive copper mining district in these headwaters is the wrong idea.

The EPA has the authority to protect Americas natural resources, jobs, regional economies and sustainable wild sockeye runs. Thats why so many of us are urging President Obama to use the Clean Water Act now to protect Bristol Bays fish, jobs, economy and way of life.

Join us in this effort by contacting President Obama directly via http://www.savebiogems. org/stop-pebble-mine. Not this mine, in this place.