Saving Seafood

Three Alaska tribes sue over permits for Donlin Gold Mine

April 11, 2023 — Three tribes in the Kuskokwim River region of Southwest Alaska filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, challenging federal agency permits for the Donlin Gold Mine, billed as potentially the world’s largest open pit gold mine.

Project backers NovaGold and Barrick Gold Corp. began working in 2012 for permits to open a mine 10 miles north of the Kuskokwim River. In echoes of the Pebble Mine project vetoed in January by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Donlin opponents say the planned mine and its rock waste would pollute salmon spawning streams that flow into the Kuskokwim River.

Tribes suing to halt the proposed project are Orutsararmiut Native Council, Tuluksak Native Council and the Organized Village of Kwethluk, represented in court by the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice.

“Citing three fundamental flaws in the environmental and subsistence analyses and authorizations for the project,” according to a statement from Earthjustice, “the lawsuit challenges key authorizations of the massive open pit mine including a federal permit allowing thousands of acres of wetlands to be filled and a federal authorization granting access across federal lands for a 316-mile pipeline from Cook Inlet to the mine site.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Mining Company Seeks Permit Near Pebble Deposit

March 16, 2023 — The Alaska Department of Natural Resources announced last week that Stuy Mines has applied for a hardrock exploration permit along Kaskanak Creek, southwest of the Pebble deposit The Stuy Mines company, registered in Washington state, is proposing a multiyear hardrock exploration program, which would include 12 holes a year The activity could start after the state issues a permit and continue through 2027. To access the site, the company has plotted a pathway that it says mostly follows existing gravel bars along Iliamna Lake and that it would grade existing gravel only where necessary.

Stuy Mines’s primary owner is a company called Love and Above. Manager Greg Ellis has also worked as a screenwriter and a home developer in Washington state, according to his Linkedin profile.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

ALASKA: A Mine That Threatened Alaskan Salmon May Be No More

February 8, 2023 –A proposed mine project in Alaska may have been dealt its final blow. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) effectively vetoed the project, citing its potential harm to salmon fisheries in the state’s Bristol Bay watershed.

Called Pebble Mine, the proposed development included a mile-wide open-pit mine, a power plant, a gas pipeline, access roads and a port to take advantage of gold and copper deposits thought to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The EPA issued a final determination last week, banning the local disposal of dredged waste from building and operating the mine. This dumping would have “unacceptable adverse effects” on local waters, including around 100 miles of streams and 2,000 acres of important breeding grounds for the bay’s salmon, per the agency.

“The Bristol Bay watershed is a vital economic driver, providing jobs, sustenance and significant ecological and cultural value to the region,” says EPA Administrator Michael Regan in a statement. “With this action, EPA is advancing its commitment to help protect this one-of-a-kind ecosystem, safeguard an essential Alaskan industry, and preserve the way of life for more than two dozen Alaska Native villages.”

Read the full article at Smithsonian Magazine

What’s next for Pebble mine, now that the federal government has taken extraordinary action to stop it?

February 2, 2023 — After a decades-long controversy, the Biden administration took a rare step this week to stop the giant Pebble copper and gold mine in Southwest Alaska. But observers of the project say the fight could live on in court for years to come.

In separate statements, mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership and the state of Alaska on Tuesday threatened to sue the Environmental Protection Agency after it issued a preemptive veto of the project using its special power under the Clean Water Act.

Conservation and tribal groups and other entities opposed to the mine have said they’re equally ready to fight back to support the agency’s decision, if it must defend itself in court. They’re also looking for additional protections for the Bristol Bay fishery, beyond the EPA action, through potential legislation in Congress.

The EPA action means the project can’t be permitted for construction, even if Pebble wins its ongoing administrative appeal of a 2020 decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny the company’s permit application.

The decision blocks a project that would have been among the largest open-pit mines in the world. The mine would have unlocked billions of dollars in mineral wealth. But the agency says scientific and technical records dating back more than two decades show the mine would unacceptably harm the world’s largest commercial sockeye salmon fishery and about two dozen Alaska Native villages in the region.

Less certain is what will happen to the project in the court battle likely to follow, though people familiar with past vetoes by the EPA — made only three times in the last 30 years — suggest that Pebble has little hope of winning in court.

The EPA’s decision also would seem to dim financial prospects for the project, though a financial analyst who tracks stocks tied to Pebble said major mining companies will always have the Pebble deposit on their radars because of its massive potential value.

The project is located on state land 200 miles southwest of Anchorage, near headwaters of the Bristol Bay fishery.

But Pebble Limited, led by small Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals, has shown remarkable resilience for many years. The project has survived the loss of major mining partners and resistance from the presidential administrations of Democrat Barack Obama, Republican Donald Trump and now Democrat Joe Biden.

Pebble is “like a zombie. They never die,” said Dan Cheyette, a vice president with the Bristol Bay Native Corp., the region’s Alaska Native corporation and a mine opponent. “We’re the persistent ones who will pursue every avenue we have to stop them.”

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

Republicans vow EPA scrutiny in Pebble veto’s wake

February 1, 2023 — A top Senate Republican is promising to ramp up oversight of EPA’s Clean Water Act veto power after the agency used its authority to block a contentious gold and copper mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, home to a world premier salmon fishery.

Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) blasted EPA’s final determination that barred waters within the Bristol Bay watershed from receiving dredge and fill. The federal action essentially killed the proposed mine.

Capito accused the agency of circumventing the agency review process and said upcoming talks on permitting reform legislation may address the issue. Capito and 38 other Republicans last year floated a bill called the “Simplify Timelines and Assure Regulatory Transparency (START) Act.”

“The environmental permitting process should have clear rules of the road, both for applicants and for the agencies to follow,” said the senator. “The EPA summarily denying an application before it is submitted sets a dangerous precedent for future economic development and infrastructure projects across the country.”

EPA stated considering vetoing Pebble during the Obama administration, before the mine had entered the permitting process. The Army Corps of Engineers denied a Clean Water Act Section 404 dredge-and-fill permit, but the company behind it appealed. EPA this week used its veto power over such permits to make sure the mine is never built.

Capito, a longtime critic of EPA’s history with vetoes, said her legislation would address retroactive decisions that have “negatively impacted West Virginia in the past” and said she will be “examining the agency’s use of prospective vetoes as well.”

Read the full article at E&E News

EPA decision on Bristol Bay draws criticism and praise

February 1, 2023 — The Environmental Protection Agency’s order limiting the use of some waters in Alaska’s Bristol Bay drew ire from Gov. Mike Dunleavy and praise from others.

The order prohibits using some waters in Alaska’s Bristol Bay as “disposal of dredged and fill material associated with developing the Pebble deposit in certain waters.”

The EPA is setting a dangerous precedent, Dunleavy said Tuesday.

“Alarmingly, it lays the foundation to stop any development project, mining or non-mining, in any area of Alaska with wetlands and fish-bearing streams,” Dunleavy said.

Read the full article at The Center Square

U.S. EPA’s move to block Pebble project in Alaska ‘unlawful’ – CEO

February 1, 2023 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to block the proposed Pebble copper and gold mining project near Alaska’s ecologically sensitive Bristol Bay watershed is “unlawful” and hurts the state, said the top boss of the mining project.

The EPA has moved to stop the company from storing mine waste at the watershed, home to important salmon species, including the world’s largest sockeye salmon fisheries that support critical wildlife and a multibillion-dollar industry.

Read the full article at Reuters

E.P.A. Blocks Long-Disputed Mine Project in Alaska

January 31, 2023 — The Biden administration on Tuesday moved to protect one of the world’s most valuable wild salmon fisheries, at Bristol Bay in Alaska, by effectively blocking the development of a gold and copper mine there.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final determination under the Clean Water Act that bans the disposal of mine waste in part of the bay’s watershed, about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage. Streams in the watershed are crucial breeding grounds for salmon, but the area also contains deposits of precious-metal ores thought to be worth several hundred billion dollars.

A two-decades old proposal to mine those ores, called the Pebble project, has been supported by some Alaskan lawmakers and Native groups for the economic benefits it would bring, but opposed by others, including tribes around the bay and environmentalists who say it would do irreparable harm to the salmon population.

Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, which has long opposed the mine, said the decision “was a real moment of justice for us.”

Read the full article at The New York Times

EPA vetoes Pebble mine

January 31, 2023 — EPA will use a rare authority under the Clean Water Act to block the proposed Pebble mine and bar similar projects to dig up a massive gold and copper deposit in Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed, home to one of the world’s premier salmon fisheries.

The agency’s decision marks yet another move by the Biden administration in recent days to protect sensitive areas critical to tribes, including sealing protections for the Tongass National Forest and restricting mining in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for decades (Greenwire, Jan. 26).

Read the full article at E&E News

Some hope the EPA will veto Pebble Mine, a project that has long divided SW Alaska

January 27, 2022 — ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

What would be one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world might never break ground. The EPA is expected to issue its final decision at the end of the month on the Pebble Mine in southwest Alaska. From member station KDLG, Izzy Ross reports.

ROSS: The EPA is exercising a rarely-used authority under the Clean Water Act, commonly called its veto authority. Agency officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a statement said the mine could harm fish spawning and breeding areas and that this action would protect the commercial and sport fisheries and a traditional way of life based on wild salmon. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied Pebble’s mining permit two years ago, but the company appealed that decision. Pebble spokesperson Mike Heatwole says the EPA is not following normal protocol by using this Clean Water Act authority before the appeal has even been processed.

MIKE HEATWOLE: We continue to say that it is largely unlawful and unprecedented, what the EPA is attempting to do regarding this project.

ROSS: And Heatwole says the company may sue. But the EPA’s use of this authority reflects its serious concerns about the mine’s impact on the region, says Joel Reynolds with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

JOEL REYNOLDS: It’s about as much opposition as one will ever see to a development project anywhere really but in particular, in a development-friendly state like Alaska.

Listen to the full story at KUNC