Once again, Sen. Dan Sullivan’s relationships with Pebble Mine executives are surfacing during campaign season. During his first term in office, Sullivan declined to take a position on the highly unpopular proposed gold and copper mine in Bristol Bay. However, when Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) then CEO Tom Collier was caught on tape saying Sullivan was avoiding publicly endorsing the mine because of his reelection campaign, Sullivan took a public stance in opposition.
“He’s off in a corner being quiet,” Collier said on the recording. “So I think that’s our plan to work with him is: leave him alone and let him be quiet.”
The tape became a main feature of Sullivan’s 2020 reelection bid, prompting him to say he would give all donations related to the proposed Pebble Mine to charity. Only, he never did. Last week, he was asked about it during a ComFish Alaska online forum. Rather than respond, Sullivan said he had to prepare for a press conference and his response, “I gotta run,” went viral and left the question unanswered.
Sen. Dan Sullivan has a long and somewhat awkward history of strategic ambiguity as it relates to the proposed Pebble Mine project. However, as recently as five months ago, Sullivan’s campaign accepted a new donation from the CEO of PLP, a subsidiary of the Canadian-based company Northern Dynasty Minerals (NDM) responsible for Pebble Mine.
The proposed mine is trying to get at a deposit of low-grade gold and copper ore that is upstream from Bristol Bay, one of the largest deposits ever discovered in North America. Most concerning for most residents is the 10 million tons of toxic mining waste that would be located directly upstream from this area, the most significant commercial salmon fishery in the world. Last summer, there was a commercial harvest of 40 million fish from this fishery, which provides billions of dollars worth of economic activity annually.
For years, NDM has been engaged in legal battles trying to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) block of the project under the Clean Water Act. It’s hard to overstate the economic and cultural value of this ecosystem, and Alaskans have long been against it. According to the Bristol Bay Native Corporation website, “54% of Alaskans oppose the proposed Pebble mine project according to a statewide survey of 600 registered voters conducted from February 17-22, 2026. These numbers are consistent with polling dating back to at least 2013; opposition to the mine has never dipped below 51%, and support has never risen above 37%.”
Despite the clear constituent disapproval and undeniable threats Pebble Mine puts on Alaska’s state economy and culture, as recently as last year, Senator Dan Sullivan is still taking donations from those affiliated with NDM. Revealed in a recent report, in December 2025, he received donated funds from John Shively, the CEO of PLP, a subsidiary of parent company NDM.
According to an investigation by “Popular Info,” between 2017 and 2020, Sullivan received over $34,000 in donations from entities connected to the Pebble Mine project from lobbyists hired by PLP to executives at both PLP and NDM, and even the wife of a NDM executive.
Fast forward six years, as Sullivan seeks re-election, the accepted 2025 donation from PLP CEO John Shively should not go without notice.
Last week, NDM submitted its final reply briefs, in which it called certain data and claims used by the EPA as context for denying the mining operation as “irrational” and “illogical.” NDM also used the brief to make claims suggesting that only 27 salmon would potentially be affected by the mine, writing in the brief: “The 27 Coho that EPA is preserving at the cost of $800 billion might disappear naturally in any given year anyway.”
The claim is an incredible misrepresentation of the ecosystem threats associated with this project. The next step in litigation is an oral argument scheduled for June 25.
Rachel Levy is a Juneau-based photojournalist whose work culminates at the intersections of environmental justice, arts and culture, and sustainable tourism. A 2022 graduate of Harvard University's Environmental Policy program, she is also the director of the award-winning documentary "Hidden in Plain Sight" that exposes the labor exploitation and colonial framework burdening Tanzania's safari industry.
