Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Murkowski says Pebble mine shouldn’t be permitted unless data ‘gaps’ get explained

September 25, 2019 — Sen. Lisa Murkowski last week expressed strong concerns about the permitting process for the Pebble copper and gold mine, saying at an event organized by a mine opponent that Pebble should not be permitted unless key questions are answered.

The Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies have raised “justifiable” issues with the Army Corps of Engineers’ 1,400-page draft review of the project’s potential impacts, she said.

“We have read what the EPA has said, and their very strong criticism of inadequacy of statements that just didn’t hold up, of data that wasn’t sufficient,” she said Sept. 18.

“So I look at that and say if the data, if the science out there that has been raised by these agencies can’t demonstrate that you can have a successful mining project in an area that is as sensitive as the Bristol Bay watershed then a permit should not issue,” she said.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska lawmakers, Native group join dispute over Pebble mine

September 11, 2019 — Alaska lawmakers and a Native corporation have joined the dispute over a Canadian company’s potential investment in a large copper and gold mining project.

Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy wrote a July letter supporting investment in the Pebble Mine by Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. of Vancouver, Canada, The Anchorage Daily News reported Monday.

Dunleavy’s letter came after groups opposed to Pebble wrote to Wheaton President Randy Smallwood discouraging its involvement.

Pebble opponents argue the project threatens the Bristol Bay salmon fishery in southwest Alaska. Potential developer Pebble Limited Partnership maintains it can operate the mine safely without threatening the fishery.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

ALASKA: Gov. Dunleavy encourages Canadian company weighing investment in Pebble mine

August 29, 2019 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy told the head of a Canadian mineral company that he would support his decision to invest in the Pebble copper and gold project, after the company received a letter from anti-Pebble groups arguing against the investment, according to a letter from the governor.

Dunleavy, who has taken a neutral stance on the project, told Randy Smallwood, president of Wheaton Precious Metals Corp., that the state will stand by the company’s possible investment in Pebble, according to the July 30 letter from the governor obtained through a public records request.

“I understand your potential investment would be structured to financially support Pebble’s completion of the permitting process,” Dunleavy said in the letter. “Every permittee deserves that opportunity, and it is my mission to assure that any project attempting to stake claim in Alaska is afforded this basic right.”

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Commercial Fishermen, Indigenous People Unite to Fight Mine in Alaska

August 15, 2019 — In the sleepy and remote village of Dillingham in southwestern Alaska, there has historically been tension between the indigenous populations, who take a subsistence approach to catching salmon, and commercial fishermen, who take in half a billion annually by trawling one of the world’s most productive fisheries at Bristol Bay.

Both groups, however, are united against a potential mining project that they believe would devastate their way of life.

The Pebble Mine is a large deposit of gold, copper and molybdenum located at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The deposit was first discovered in the 1980s and multinational corporations began seriously pursuing its development in the 2000s.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

CNN: EPA reversal on Pebble Mine came after Trump met with Dunleavy

August 12, 2019 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed its position on the Pebble Mine project after Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy met with President Donald Trump, according to a CNN report.

Although the EPA’s decision not to oppose the mining project was made public on 30 July, staff scientists at the agency learned of the decision a month before, soon after the meeting. Dunleavy met with Trump while Air Force One was in Alaska on 26 June on the way to the G20 summit in Japan.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: In boost to Pebble Mine promoters, EPA withdraws Clean Water Act protections

August 1, 2019 — The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will withdraw protections implemented by in 2014 under the Clean Water Act that could have posed a hurdle to the proposed Pebble Mine development, which many salmon harvesters say threatens Alaska’s Bristol Bay fishery.

The EPA said in a July 30 statement that it will withdraw section Clean Water Act 404(c) provisions that would have restricted the use of “certain waters in the South Fork Koktuli River, North Fork Koktuli River, and Upper Talarik Creek watersheds in southwest Alaska as disposal sites for dredged or fill material”.

Under the administration of president Barack Obama, the EPA implemented the provisions in 2014. Three years later after the election of president Donald Trump, the agency’s then-head, Scott Pruitt, began the process to withdraw the protections. However, following an investigative report from CNN that claimed that Pruitt made the decision to withdraw the protections only an hour after meeting with the CEO of mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership, Tom Collier, Pruitt stopped the withdrawal process.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: EPA kills proposed Obama-era Pebble mine ‘veto’

July 31, 2019 — The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday it will reverse an Obama-era decision to block a controversial Alaska mine project.

“After today’s action EPA will focus on the permit review process for the Pebble Mine project” Region 10 Administrator Chris Hladick said in a statement.

“The agency has worked closely with the Army Corps to engage with stakeholders and the public on this issue, which has resulted in an expansive public record, including specific information about the proposed mining project that did not exist in 2014,” Hladick added.

While the EPA is withdrawing the 2014 determination, which it wrote “was issued preemptively and is now outdated,” the withdrawal does not constitute an approval of the permit application or a determination in the permitting process.

Read the full story at The Hill

ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS: Proposed Bristol Bay protections have never been more important

July 22, 2019 — The diverse coalition of Alaskans working to protect Bristol Bay would like to respond to the recent comments by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stating major deficiencies in Pebble’s plan and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), as well as last week’s news that the EPA will resume the withdrawal process for the 2014 proposed determination that would protect the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed.

Our diverse coalition formed after six Bristol Bay Tribes petitioned the EPA in 2010 for help protecting the water and land that sustains our communities. The request was quickly supported by commercial and sport fishing groups, and our broad collection of Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, commercial fishermen, sport fishing businesses and enthusiasts and Alaska-based conservation groups. Together, we seek to protect the world-class treasure that is the Bristol Bay salmon fishery from the proposed Pebble mine.

Since this request was made, major financial backers have abandoned the project, a twice-peer reviewed study found that mining the Pebble deposit would have unacceptable adverse impacts to the fishery, and the majority of Alaskans have continually opposed the project. Now, the EPA has said Pebble’s permit application confirms its prior finding: Pebble Mine cannot safely coexist with the fishery.

The EPA’s multi-year public process and the resulting proposed determination included every stakeholder group – our organizations, state government representatives, scientific experts, Bristol Bay residents and the Pebble Partnership all had seats at the table.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Sen. Murkowski finds EPA criticism of Pebble Mine ‘substantial’

July 12, 2019 — The Environmental Protection Agency issued harsh assessments of the proposed Pebble Mine last week, and they’ve made an impression on Lisa Murkowski. But the senator says her powers are limited.

For years, Murkowski has stayed neutral on the mine itself while defending the permitting process, so her recent statements are uncharacteristically pointed.

“I have read the 404(q) submission and the issues that are raised by the EPA are substantial and, based on my read, well made,” she said Wednesday, referring to the agency’s review of Pebble’s proposal.

The EPA found the project “may have substantial and unacceptable adverse impacts” on the fish and fish habitat in the Bristol Bay watershed.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska gives federal agency long Pebble Mine to-do list

July 9, 2019 — If you thought the administration of newly elected Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy would use the US Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) invitation for comments on its draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Pebble Mine to offer up an unconditional love letter on behalf of the massive copper, gold and molybdenum open pit mine in Bristol Bay, think again.

The state’s Office of Project Management and Permitting (OPMP) instead coordinated with seven state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources, to submit a tedious 96-page to-do list for the federal agency to satisfy. OPMP’s cover letter offers no opinions about whether the project, which commercial harvesters and others fear will imperil the world’s largest sockeye salmon population, is a positive or negative development.

The letter requests details, for example, about pipeline trenching plans and soil erosion, as well as the contents of drilling muds, the likelihood of turbidity in streams and the potential impact on the lodging industry. It asks for the possible effects on fish from a concentrated spill of metal-laden sediment.

“Although much of the information the state has provided the USACE previously has been incorporated into the DEIS, further work is necessary to ensure potential effects to the human environment from each alternative are adequately evaluated and described in the [final environmental impact statement],” the letter, signed by Kyle Moselle, OPMP’s associate director, wrote.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News