Saving Seafood

Investors call on EPA, Congress for ban on development in Alaska’s Bristol Bay

April 8, 2021 — On Wednesday, 50 investors representing $105 billion sent a letter calling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Congress to permanently protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay against large-scale mining.

The signatories are concerned about the long-term social and environmental impacts of the Pebble mine, a massive open-pit gold and copper project in the Bristol Bay headwaters proposed by Canadian junior Northern Dynasty Minerals (NYSE: NAK).

On Tuesday, Northern Dynasty announced it had written to the recently confirmed Administrator of the EPA Michael Regan with a status update on the Pebble project and had urged the new Administrator to support a full and fair process for the project.

The investors said that while recognizing the importance of natural resource development to support economic growth, they are concerned waste from the proposed mine would threaten the world’s largest wild salmon fishery, located in the Bristol Bay area.

Read the full story at Mining.com

ALASKA: 2 Pebble appeals, 2 different outcomes

March 3, 2021 — Two requests to appeal the decision to deny a key permit for a proposed copper and gold mine in Southwest Alaska met different fates.

The Army Corps of Engineers didn’t accept the state’s attempt to appeal a November 2020 decision to deny a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine, a long-controversial effort to place an open-pit mine near the headwarters of the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world.

Meanwhile, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., the Vancouver-based parent company of Pebble Limited Partnership, reports that a Feb. 24 letter indicated the corps accepted Pebble’s request for an administrative appeal.

Mike Heatwole, a spokesperson for Pebble Limited Partnership, said Saturday in an email Pebble looks forward to having the appeal fully vetted.

In an email, Luciano Vera, deputy chief of public affairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Pacific Ocean Division, said the division engineer determined that the state does not meet the definition of an “affected party.”

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

Alaska’s US attorney is investigating something about Pebble, but the target is unclear

February 10, 2021 — The parent company of the proposed Pebble Mine said it’s cooperating with a federal grand jury investigation. The company said the case relates to conversations about the mine that were secretly recorded. But who is being investigated, and for what alleged crime, is not clear.

The company, British Columbia-based Northern Dynasty, issued a statement Friday that leaves a lot unanswered. It said the U.S. Attorney’s office in Alaska issued subpoenas to Pebble Limited Partnership and its former CEO, Tom Collier, requiring them to hand over certain documents.

The statement said the investigation appears related to “previously disclosed recordings of private conversations regarding the Pebble Project.”

That seems to describe the so-called Pebble Tapes, undercover recordings produced last year by an environmental group.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Department of Justice serves subpoenas to Pebble mine developer and former chief executive

February 8, 2021 — The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a grand jury subpoena to the developer of the controversial proposed Pebble mine and the company’s former chief executive as part of an investigation involving already-disclosed private conversations about the project, according to a statement from the project’s parent company.

The Pebble Limited Partnership and its former CEO, Tom Collier, have each been served with a subpoena issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska, according to an online statement from Northern Dynasty Minerals, Pebble’s parent company on Friday.

The company and Collier must “produce documents in connection with a grand jury investigation apparently involving previously disclosed recordings of private conversations regarding the Pebble Project,” the statement said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Pebble petition: Alaska gov appeals on mine’s behalf

January 13, 2021 — On Jan. 8, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the state would take action to appeal the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to deny a permit application for the Pebble Mine.

The Pebble Limited Partnership submitted its plan for a mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region almost two years ago. The 1,500-page document was immediately and widely panned by scientists, fishery managers, fishermen and many representatives of Bristol Bay’s Native tribes.

“Bristol Bay residents and Alaskans have been clear that we will not trade one of the world’s last robust salmon fisheries for a gold mine, and the Army Corps decision affirmed that this toxic project is too risky for our home and does not serve the public interest,” said United Tribes of Bristol Bay Deputy Director Lindsay Layland, who participated in our Expo Online Pebble Mine panel in November.

Alaskans living and working in the region have fought the mine’s development for more than a decade, primarily because of the risks it would pose to the wild salmon habitat. The benefits to the region, they have said, would be short term, since the mineral rights are owned by Pebble’s parent company, Northern Dynasty Minerals, a Canadian company.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska governor plans appeal of mine project denial

January 11, 2021 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the state will appeal the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ rejection of a key permit for a proposed copper and gold mine in a region that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs.

Dunleavy, in a statement Friday, called the corps’ decision flawed and said the state has to keep a federal agency “from using the regulatory process to effectively prevent the State from fulfilling a constitutional mandate to develop its natural resources.”

The corps in November determined the project was “contrary to the public interest,” a finding lauded as the right one by Alaska’s U.S. senators, who, like Dunleavy, are Republicans. The corps’ decision stood out following their release of an environmental review last summer that the developer of the Pebble Mine saw as positive and as laying the groundwork for key federal approvals.

Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., which owns the Pebble Limited Partnership, the company working to advance the project, also has said it will pursue an appeal.

Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, said it’s “pretty enraging” that Dunleavy “is proving that he will go above and beyond for this project.”

“It just shows how out of touch he is with Alaskans,” she said.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Investors sue parent company behind gold mine in Alaska

January 4, 2020 — The company behind a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska faces lawsuits from investors claiming it misled shareholders who have seen an 85% drop in stock value since the summer.

Two lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in New York claim Northern Dynasty Minerals violated federal securities law when project executives did not fully provide information about the project, The Anchorage Daily News reported Friday.

Developer The Pebble Limited Partnership and parent company Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. sought to build a mine about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage and near the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay.

The project was criticized by environment groups and also condemned by Alaska Republican U.S. Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Seattle Times

Mine developer to appeal US decision to reject Alaska permit

December 21, 2020 — A mine developer says it will appeal a Trump administration decision denying a permit to build a copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska.

Northern Dynasty Minerals President and CEO Ron Thiessen said in a statement Thursday that the government’s rejection was “without precedent in the long history of responsible resource development in Alaska,” the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied the company a permit in November, saying its plans to develop the mine were against the public’s interest and did not adhere to the Clean Water Act.

The proposed mine would have been built on state-owned land in the Bristol Bay region, near the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon fishery.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

ALASKA: Northern Dynasty to Appeal US Army Corps’ Pebble Decision

December 21, 2020 — Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX: NDM; NYSE: NAK) said on Thursday its unit, Pebble Partnership, was preparing an appeal after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a key water permit for the proposed Alaska mine.

The company’s shares cratered nearly 50% last week after its US-based subsidiary received formal notification that its application for permits under the Clean Water Act and other federal statutes was denied.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ALASKA: Environmental group releases more secretly recorded ‘Pebble Tapes’ targeting the executive who remains in charge

October 30, 2020 — An environmental group on Thursday released two additional video recordings of Pebble mine executive Ron Thiessen discussing his political strategy for winning a federal permit for the mine.

The release is a follow-up to the damaging tapes the group released in September that became a flashpoint in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race and led to the downfall of Thiessen’s former colleague from the project, Tom Collier.

The Environmental Investigation Agency said in a written statement that the newly released video recordings, part of the same meetings originally recorded in August and September, highlight Thiessen’s role as head of the project.

The videos also underscore the financial benefit that companies he is involved in will receive if the mine is built, the group said.

Thiessen remains the head of Northern Dynasty Minerals, the Canadian-based parent company of Pebble Limited Partnership that’s seeking to develop the copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska. Collier last month resigned from his position as chief executive of Pebble Limited.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News