November 16, 2023 — The company trying to build a huge copper and gold mine in the salmon-rich Bristol Bay will keep fighting for the project, despite a decision by the federal government to keep the proposed development site off-limits to large-scale metals mining.
John Shively, chief executive officer of the Pebble Limited Partnership, made that vow in a presentation at the Alaska Miners Association annual convention in Anchorage.
He said the Pebble mine had the potential to transform the economy and improve lives in the rural Bristol Bay region, just as he said the Red Dog Mine, one of the world’s biggest zinc producers, has done in Northwest Alaska.
“That’s why we’re still fighting this. The resources are there. We’re still here. We’re not going anywhere,” he told the convention audience in his presentation on Thursday.
The company’s fight is backed by the administration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy. At his direction, the state in July filed a lawsuit directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to overturn a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency that bars permitting for any Pebble-type mine in key areas of the Bristol Bay watershed.
Dunleavy, in brief remarks earlier this week at the miners’ convention, expressed pride in his support of the controversial project.
“I was told if I supported Pebble, I would never win another election. Well, I don’t know. I’m here. I’m still here,” he said on Tuesday, drawing applause from the audience. The Republican governor was handily reelected last November.
The EPA decision invoked a rarely used provision in the Clean Water Act to preclude any wetlands permit for the project. The agency determined that the Pebble mine posed an unacceptable risk to the Bristol Bay watershed, essential to a region with the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs and with major fisheries and wildlife populations that depend on that salmon.
To help reverse that decision, the Pebble Limited Partnership and its owner, Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., in September filed an amicus brief in support of the state’s Supreme Court effort. Filing supportive briefs, too, were the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and numerous Alaska and national resource-development groups.