We are the latest arrivals, which of course makes us think that we’re special – the smartest, the most capable, the best-equipped. But hundreds of generations were here before us – astounded and sustained by the salmon runs of Bristol Bay.

Every single person in local, state and federal government who has a say in whether or not the Pebble Mine moves forward must acknowledge and answer to those generations; those people who lived full, hard lives; whose survival depended on their ability to catch, clean, process and preserve enough fish to last the rest of the year. They were fishermen like us, watching the tides, employing the best tools they could build and repair, having good days and having bad days. They were smart, they were capable, and every one of them earned our respect – I know they have mine.

As a twenty-five year-old Bristol Bay fisherman, and the son of a fisherman, I think a lot about previous generations, and the ones to come, and I’m nervous about the people who will ultimately make the call on Pebble.

They need to place themselves in a historical continuum. They should acknowledge the weight of responsibility they carry, because they’re going to be judged by how they bear the privilege of stewardship that has passed to them. This isn’t big bureaucracy pass-the-buck time, it’s accountability time.

They are accountable to the hundreds of generations who follow ours, because as we all know, those massive earthen dams – taller than the Space Needle! – have to hold back their uncountable tons of poisonous waste not for ten, a hundred, or a thousand years, but forever.

And of course they won’t hold forever, because nothing manmade ever does. So if Pebble is built, make no mistake – those poisons will wash down, and they will take out Iliamna and the Kvichak and the Nushagak. And everyone knows that.

Brett Veerhusen wrote this op-ed for Alaska Waypoints, a new commercial fishing website.