BIG WIN FOR ENVIRONMENTAL NGO INDUSTRY
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Alaska District has bowed to pressure from Alaska’s senior Sen. Lisa Murkowski and environmental nonprofit groups and extended the public comment period an additional 30-days for the Pebble Limited Partnership draft environmental impact statement.
The corps had set the environmental impact statement period to end in May because in June, everyone in Alaska goes fishing. The extension will allow the environmental industry to continue their “click here” fund-raising through June.
The extension is all about putting the project final decision into the next presidential administration, making it purely about presidential election politics.
The deadline for submitting comments about the draft EIS is now June 29. The Corps will consider all comments received by that date before finalizing the document and making a permit decision in 2020. The extension brings the length of the public comment period to 120-days, shorter than what environmental groups wanted.
The Corps released the draft environmental impact statement on Feb. 20 with the formal public comment period beginning March 1.
The Corps conducted nine public hearings in Alaska to take comment on the permit application and draft EIS. Meetings were held in Anchorage, Dillingham, Homer, Igiugig, Kokhanok, Naknek, New Halen, New Stuyahok, and Nondalton.
To date, about 8,400 public comments have been uploaded to the EIS website.
Comments can be electronically submitted on the public website: https://www.pebbleprojecteis.c
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District
ATTN: DA Permit Application 2017-271, Pebble Limited Partnership
645 G Street Suite 100-921
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
All comments become part of the public record. For more information, visit https://www.pebbleprojecteis.c
I can live with it. The extension of only 30 days is much less than the Pebble opponents wanted of 270 days and shows that the Corps is not completely inflexible and obdurate.
The extension, at worst, will delay the timeline by 30 days so that the ROD can be expected in April or May, 2020. So much for the hopes of the Pebble opponents to delay a ROD past the 2020 elections in hopes that a Democratic administration will kill the project!
All these delays are just delays in increased Incomes for Alaskans that need to improve their life styles. Increased Incomes are needed to stem the tide of population LEAVING Alaska…… Facing the facts of Increasing the Taxes and Royalties coming into the Alaskan Treasury just puts success for Alaska on the usual Back Burner. The same old delays and usual denials for upgrades in the Alaskan life style was the same blast of ridiculous negatives coming out of the wilderness when the Alaskan Pipeline was being considered. One wonders where Alaska would be today without the OIL Business over the last 50 years or so. EXTEND, EXTEND EXTEND……. That is the Rally we hear led by Senator Murkowski, and her Environmental minions. It seems that the cry of “MAKING AMERICAN GREAT” has turned to Making Alaska a Dead Stop state…………. The United States is enjoying huge successes in a booming Economy, but Alaska crawls in continued MUCK…………… The big question, how do OTHER business and companies look upon the DELAYS of Dead Alaska?
Dead Stop Alaska in REVERSE………… Tried to go the Dead Stop path with the denial of the Alaskan Pipeline 50 or so years ago, now it is Progress in INCOMES for Alaskans, controlled by OUTSIDERS……… “MAKING AMERICA GREAT”, does not include Alaska. Alaska is in the MUCK………
Once the mining has begun, mankind can absolutely NEVER walk away from these types of projects. This will forever require constant maintenance to contain the heavy metals within the processors ponds. One large earthquake in this extremely volcanic area and all lakes and rivers downstream will become superfund sites. Everything will die…
Our children are dying because they see no jobs, no future. Just drugs and booze. Bristol Bay fishing is owned mostly by Seattle and Portland boats and Japanese processors.
This is one project that should not move forward. Every project similar to Pebble has had or had major environmental issues. It is not worth the risk.
Salmon for dinner,would you like some mercury with that?
OMG , What this company has gone through. EPA overreach by the Obama
administration. Delay after delay and now this. Does Senator Murkowski
realize that the NRDC is working with China to stop this project. Any thing to
strangle our natural resources, China and Russia will have a hand in it.
Great Mine Project … Let’s Git-R-Done, quit wasting time, put people to work, and reap the economic opportunities!
This company has never built or operated a mine…..
Yeah, that’s right ….. and you want to give them the go ahead to build the largest open pit mine in North America is the most perfect salmon producing habitat on earth….
This is such a ridiculous idea…. boggles the mind that we are even talking about it…
To MARK NEVER….. Have you NEVER heard about the successful method of HIRING the right people in management and occupations to run the mine? Get this mine going, and cut out all this stonewalling. The OIL PIPELINE went thru the SAME delays until it was finally built. The great prophets of the day claimed that the caribou would not be able to migrate and the pipeline would kill the whales….. The disaster Mark Never speaks of, are people who don’t know what they are speaking about……. The money is going to Seattle and Portland, and the people in Alaska are left in the muck………..
It has never been Northern Dynasty’s intention to build and operate the Pebble mine. It plans to sell its interest or a portion of it to a major mining company to do so. The Hunter Dickenson group (HDI), of which Northern Dynasty is a part, has built and operated several mines, including the Gibraltar mine in BC, which is owned by Taseko. Its business plan, however, is to find and develop mineral properties, and then sell them to a major to operate. A project like Pebble requires a lot of capital, and only a major or majors can undertake it.
Your other point about Pebble being the largest open pit mine in North America is false. Kennicott Copper’s Bingham Canyon mine on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, for example, is larger than PLP’s mine plan for Pebble by far.
Mark Never’s comments are the usual ideas of someone who is out of the realm of knowing what is going on. Automatically saying NO to the progress of improving people’s lives and also, providing American National Security…… Get this STONEWALLING behind us and get the Pebble mine underway. The Alaskans voted for it in the November Election of 2018…………….
Where do the highest price salmon come from? The copper river, what was on the copper river? A very large copper mine, I believe that this could help the price of salmon in the long run.
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