EPA, Northern Dynasty settle dispute over Pebble mine

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX:NDM) put an end Friday to a long-dragged dispute over the federal agency’s decision to block construction of the firm’s vast copper-gold-silver project in Alaska.

The settlement paves the way for an eventual permitting decision that could allow Northern Dynasty’s subsidiary — Pebble Limited Partnership — to move forward with the proposed Pebble Mine near Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska.

"The Pebble Partnership will advance a progressive mine plan, including mitigation, to be assessed by objective, expert regulators at the US Army Corps of Engineers and a raft of other federal and state agencies — including EPA", the company’s President and CEO Ron Thiessen said in the statement.

"Not only are we no longer facing extraordinary development restrictions at Pebble, we will also be assured a fair and predictable permitting review of our proposed development plan,” Thiessen noted.

The Pebble Partnership sued EPA in 2014 over the agency’s decision to block the mine on environmental and tribal sovereignty grounds before the company had submitted its permit applications.

Such decision triggered a legal dispute between the environmental watchdog and Pebble Limited, as well as congressional probes into the validity of the EPA’s action.

One of the company’s main claims was that the agency manipulated scientific results and that some of its staff should have been found to be in conflict of interest.

But opposition to the controversial project dates back to the mid-2000s. A 2006-poll by the Cromer Group revealed that 53% of Alaskans oppose it; a second poll ran by Hellenthal Associates that same year found that 71% were against it, and a third poll presented in 2011 stated that 85% of commercial fishermen also reject the project.

Environmentalists, Native American groups, and even the EPA repeatedly expressed concerns about the “irreversible negative impacts” of the mine in one of the planet's greatest wild salmon fisheries, and the risk it represented in their view to 14,000 jobs and the $252 million-a-year the local fishing industry generates.

The Pebble deposit is one of the greatest stores of mineral wealth ever discovered, according to Northern Dynasty. The current resource estimate includes 6.44 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories containing 57 billion pounds of copper, 70 million ounces of gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum and 344 million of silver.

More to come…

 

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