The Bering River Coal fields

Another, most exciting development, is the opportunity to purchase for conservation the historic Bering River coal fields of the east Delta. EPC is working closely with the current owner, Dr. Joe Shin of the Korean Alaska Development Corporation (KADCO), who has expressed interest in a conservation deal that would retire the coal patent and leave approximately three billion tons of coal in the ground.

Bering River CoalFields & Katalla Oil Field

These coal fields play an integral role in the history of the US conservation movement. President Teddy Roosevelt, at the beginning of the 20th century, created and then extended the boundaries of the Chugach National Forest to include the east Copper River Delta in order to protect the public coal fields from exploitation by the J.P. Morgan and Guggenheim Syndicate. Subsequently, Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the Forest Service, was fired by Roosevelt's successor, President William Howard Taft, after Pinchot blew the whistle on administration attempts to give the coal fields back to the Syndicate. The scandal played on the national stage for months, and Roosevelt - in defense of Pinchot, the Delta, and the primary conservation ethic that public resources (the commons) should not be given away for private exploitation - came out of retirement, created the Bull Moose Party to run against Taft in the next Presidential election, and succeeded in continuing protection for the coal fields.

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, one of EPC's visions is to see that the coal fields and the associated wetlands and rain forest of the Eyak homeland be placed back in the stewardship of the Eyak Nation and protected in perpetuity. Such an event would be an enormously important symbol for a return to Native conservation wisdom and respect for the earth, and in the process, establish recognition, a land claims and potential standing in the courts for the remaining Eyak people.

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