Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Groups band together against Pebble Limited Partnership

May 21, 2024 — On Friday, the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Bristol Bay Native Association, Bristol Bay Native Corporation, Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, and Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay jointly moved to intervene in a challenge by Northern Dynasty Minerals and Pebble Limited Partnership to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to protect our nation’s clean waters from the mining of the Pebble ore deposit.

After decades of study, the EPA determined that the mine would have unacceptable adverse effects on Bristol Bay’s resources, fishing industry, and communities.  Northern Dynasty’s challenge to EPA’s decision was filed in federal court in Alaska, and the Bristol Bay organizations moved to intervene in the case to ensure that the interests of the region, its Native communities, resources, environment, and economy remain protected and secure.

Below are statements from the organizations that filed the motion to intervene:

“With today’s filing, the people of Bristol Bay are standing up for our region and our way of life.  For decades, Bristol Bay Tribes, a majority of Alaskans, along with people across the country, have voiced their opposition to Northern Dynasty and its plans to develop the Pebble Mine,” said Shelley Cotton, Chief Strategy Director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. “The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act Final Determination is the result of years of effort by our people to protect the place we call home.  We have made our voices heard throughout the world.  And now we are taking our voice to the courts.”

“Pebble mine would jeopardize the world’s most pristine wild sockeye salmon habitat, tens of thousands of fishing-related jobs, and a salmon-based Alaska Native culture that dates back millennia. EPA relied on sound science, a thorough process, and the voices of tens of thousands of Alaskans to issue its Clean Water Act Section 404(c) Final Determination,” said Russell Nelson, BBNC Board Chair. “While we are confident these basic facts will prevail in court, Congress can and should also put this matter to rest by providing additional protections for Bristol Bay. Rep. Peltola’s Bristol Bay Protection Act is a good starting point, and we look forward to working with the entire Alaska delegation to ensure Bristol Bay’s future remains free of Pebble mine.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Peltola pushes bill to permanently block Pebble mine in Alaska

May 2, 2024 — Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska on Wednesday introduced legislation to permanently block mining in her home state’s pristine Bristol Bay, one of the world’s premier salmon fisheries.

Peltola’s “Bristol Bay Protection Act” would codify EPA’s veto last year of the proposed Pebble mine under the Clean Water Act in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska. EPA at the time said its decision was based on decades of research showing discharges tied to the mine would have adverse effects on salmon fishery areas within the Bristol Bay watershed.

“I came to DC to stand up for fish — to make fishing and the livelihoods of our fishing communities the national issue it deserves to be,” the congresswoman said, adding that entire communities rely on Bristol Bay’s watershed for subsistence, which is deeply interwoven into their social and cultural practices.

Read the full story at E&E News

In Donlin lawsuit, Murkowski, Sullivan and Peltola come to mining project’s defense

April 25, 2024 — Alaska’s three-member, bipartisan congressional delegation is siding with boosters of the major proposed Donlin mine in an ongoing lawsuit filed by tribal governments that seeks to invalidate the Southwest Alaska project’s federal environmental approvals.

Republican U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, in documents filed in federal court late Tuesday, called the proposed Southwest Alaska mine one of the state’s “most important and necessary economic development projects.”

And they say that blocking the mine’s construction would stop one of the state’s largest Alaska Native-owned corporations, Calista, from “developing its natural resources in defiance of the commitment to economic self-determination” contained in the federal legislation that settled Indigenous land claims.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Army Corps denies appeal from Pebble mine backers

April 17, 2024 — The Army Corps of Engineers on Monday doubled down on its decision to deny federal water permits for a controversial proposal to build a massive gold and copper mine in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay watershed.

The agency rejected an appeal from the mine’s developers, the Pebble Limited Partnership, to reconsider its decision in 2020, under the Trump administration, to deny the project a federal water permit over concerns about potential impacts to salmon fisheries in the area.

In early 2021, developers appealed to the Army Corps through an administrative process within the agency. Last year, the Army Corps said it would take a fresh lookand reconsider part of its decision. But Col. Jeff Palazzini, who commands the Army Corps’ Alaska district, concluded in a record of decision posted to the agency’s website Monday that the appeal was ultimately being denied.

Read the full article at E&E News

ALASKA: Federal courts face another Groundhog Day in the Pebble mine saga

March 26, 2024 — It’s Groundhog Day all over again in the federal court system over the fate of a proposed copper, gold and molybdenum mine in an area of Southwest Alaska abutting the Bristol Bay watershed.

A Canadian mining company intent on building a copper, gold and molybdenum mine abutting the Bristol Bay watershed, having spent increasing millions of dollars in defense of a project, maintains that their project will provide hundreds of jobs and boost regional and state economies, all in harmony with the world’s largest run of wild sockeye salmon.

Opponents of the project reiterate it’s a mistake for Northern Dynasty Minerals and the state of Alaska to continue to pursue development of what could be the largest open pit mine in North America near headwaters of Bristol Bay’s wild sockeye salmon fishery, the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. These sockeyes, says the Bristol Bay Native Corp., support a commercial fishery that provides over $2 billion in economic value annually and more than 15,000 jobs, and Pebble is the wrong mine in the wrong place.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

ALASKA: CERAWEEK-Alaska’s governor calls on Biden to update mine permit process

March 21, 2024 — Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy called on President Joe Biden on Wednesday to update and streamline the U.S. mine permitting process in order to boost domestic production of critical minerals and reduce dependence on foreign nations.

The push echoes calls from the mining industry for clarity on how permits can be obtained for mines that produce copper, lithium and other energy transition minerals. Executives have long complained the U.S. process can be complex, expensive and opaque due in part to a federal mining law enacted in 1872.

“Our message to the Biden administration is, ‘Do everything you can to do everything here in America. Get your permitting processes streamlined,'” Dunleavy told Reuters on the sidelines of the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

It is “somewhat nonsensical,” the governor said, that Biden has pushed for greater adoption of electric vehicles – which require far more critical minerals to build than internal combustion engines – but has blocked Northern Dynasty’s Pebble copper and gold mining project.

Read the full article at Yahoo Finance

Controversial mine project sues over EPA veto

March 18, 2024 — In a statement Friday, the Pebble Partnership alleged the EPA’s veto was issued before the completion of the permitting process.

Rather than waiting for the Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) permitting process to conclude, the EPA made its decision under a provision of the Clean Water Act that allows it to restrict mining activity in the Bristol Bay watershed.

The bay contains the world’s single largest sockeye salmon fishery.

Read the full article at The Hill

Supreme Court won’t consider Pebble Mine appeal

January 11, 2023 — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge by the State of Alaska to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s block of the Pebble Mine project.

The state sought to go directly to the high court and overturn the EPA’s January 2023 decision to veto the mine project based on the federal Clean Water Act and the danger of open-pit mining damaging the Bristol Bay watershed and its salmon fishery.

 Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy in July filed the lawsuit, arguing that the agency decision against the mine and its effect on Alaska economic development warranted an immediate top judicial review.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Supreme Court denies Alaska’s bid to revive the copper and gold Pebble Mine proposal blocked by EPA

January 9, 2024 — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Alaska’s bid to revive a proposed copper and gold mine that was blocked by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The justices did not comment in turning away the state’s attempt to sue the Biden administration directly in the high court over its desire to revive the proposed Pebble Mine in the state’s Bristol Bay region.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Debate over Pebble mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region moves to dueling Supreme Court briefs

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.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon