Northern Dynasty Minerals, owner of the Pebble Mine prospect in Western Alaska, says the US Army Corps of Engineers’ “perfunctory rejection” last month of the mine’s mitigation plan “is emblematic of the lead federal agency’s recent permitting decision at Pebble, arguing it is contrary to law, unprecedented in Alaska and unsupported by the administrative record.”
Northern Dynasty is preparing a “request for appeal” of the Corps’ Nov. 25, 2020 denial of the proposed copper-gold-molybdenum-silver- rhenium mine.
The appeal will be submitted in January and will argue that the mitigation requirements for Pebble are contrary to policy and precedent, and the agency’s rejection of it is procedurally and substantively invalid.
“The US Army Corps of Engineers issued a finding this summer that Pebble would cause ‘significant degradation’ to aquatic resources in the project area, and on that basis issued mitigation requirements that were both extreme and unprecedented in Alaska,” said Northern Dynasty President and CEO Ron Thiessen.
“Although we believe the USACE’s ‘significant degradation’ finding to be contrary to law and unsupported by the administrative record as established by the Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”), we set out in good faith to meet their demand for in-kind and in-watershed mitigation at a very high and unprecedented ratio for Alaska – and after a tremendous amount of professional effort and investment, we did it,” he said.
“For the USACE to summarily reject a CMP that is directly responsive to its requirements, to do it on the basis of what we believe to be largely minor and arbitrary deficiencies and without giving the proponent an opportunity to respond to those alleged deficiencies or otherwise amend its application is, we believe, without precedent in the long history of responsible resource development in Alaska.”
The Pebble Project as proposed would impact 3,650 acres of wetlands and other water bodies, as well as 185 miles of streams.
To compensate, the Pebble Partnership proposed the creation of a 112,445 acre Koktuli Conservation Area on state-owned land in the Koktuli watershed – preserving 27,886 acres of wetlands, 1,174 acres of other waters and 814 miles (1,967 acres) of streams in the immediate vicinity of the Pebble Project.
This is exactly the type of mitigation that is usually accepted by agencies.
The Pebble Partnership’s plan was prepared in collaboration with HDR Alaska – a leading aquatic resources consulting firm in Alaska, whose experience spans the preparation of dozens of Clean Water Act- compliant compensatory mitigation plans for oil and gas, mining and other resource and infrastructure development projects in the state.
The company said more than 1,000 person-days of field work were spent this summer gathering baseline data and other technical information to meet the Corps’ mitigation requirements. In addition, the Pebble Partnership met with Corps officials to confirm its view that the proposed mitigation area would meet the agency’s stated requirements for in-watershed and in-kind mitigation.
“We expended considerable financial and professional resources delivering exactly what the US Army Corps asked us to deliver on compensatory mitigation,” Thiessen said.
Unfortunately for Pebble, this summer a secretly recorded tape with Pebble mine executive Tom Collier was released to the media. In it, Collier made it appear that he had politicians and agencies eating out of his hands. This act of environmental espionage embarrassed the permitting agency, which may have influenced the ultimate decision.
Collier resigned soon after his leaked conversations made international news.
Also, unfortunately for Pebble, the Biden Administration is brining onboard an army of environmental justice warriors, including Gina McCarthy, who was in charge of the EPA when it preemptively prevented Pebble from even applying for a permit.
