Currently in Toronto — May 26th, 2022
The weather, currently.
A big warm up for your Thursday, but with it comes some showers. A complex and slow-moving system will advance into the lower Great Lakes through the day tomorrow. Expect variable cloudiness for your morning and mild temperatures near 15°C. Pre-dawn showers will taper off, with likely an isolated shower redeveloping as you head into work. It will be cloudy, with some peeks of sunshine for much of the afternoon, but it would still be a good idea to bring along an umbrella. A few scattered afternoon showers are very likely but the widespread rain event will hold off until evening. The high will be 24°C, but will seem a bit warmer with the humidity. The wind will be from the south at 30-50km/h and the UV index will be 8 or very high.
Thursday Night: Cloudy with periods of rain and a low of 15°C.
What you need to know, currently.
The EPA announced today that it plans to issue a proposal blocking the Pebble Gold Mine and permanently protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay, which provides more than half of the world’s salmon. The bay sits over a large store of gold, copper, and molybdenum—which is used in steel alloys.
The Obama administration issued a preemptive veto against the mine in 2014, which was then withdrawn by the Trump Administration’s EPA. Opponents of the mine noted that it would be the largest open pit mine in the country and pose serious dangers to the local watershed—threatening both the fishing industry and drinking water.
In 2020, environmental activists leaked recordings of executives insinuating that they had misrepresented the scale of the mine and planned to use any development in the Bristol Bay area as a route to opening up more mines in the region.
“They’ve lied to everyone about what this project looks like and what their intentions are,” Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, told the New York Times. “It’s time now for our elected leadership to stand up for Alaskans and stop this corrupt process.”