July 25, 2o23 — U.S. senators are calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to put together a plan to address a backlog of aquaculture permit applications.
Shellfish aquaculture projects typically require approval from the Corps, which will ensure their compliance with U.S. environmental laws. According to a 2019 report conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog organization, the Corps received 3,751 applications from 2012 through 2017.
August 17, 2021 — Northern Dynasty Minerals announced this week that its appeal of the Pebble Mine decision is receiving new oversight and is likely to take a year or longer.
In November 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected the mining company’s permit application to build Pebble Mine at the headwaters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay under its subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership, following a battle with local residents, Native tribes and fishing stakeholders that spanned three decades.
The mining company submitted its appeal of the decision in January, and now the Corps has assigned a new review officer to the appeal, after the prior RO was promoted out of the position, according to a release from Northern Dynasty President and CEO Ronald Thiessen.
The release notes that “guidelines indicate the administrative appeal process should conclude within 90 days.” However, “the Pebble Partnership has been advised that the administrative appeal process for Pebble is likely to take a year or more given the complexity of the case and the scope of the administrative record.”
June 23, 2021 — Two federal agencies are partnering to pursue more offshore wind energy along the Atlantic Coast, though much of North Carolina’s coastline doesn’t seem to be involved.
Meanwhile, state officials are pursuing similar plans.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued an announcement June 14 they’ve entered into an agreement to support planning and reviewing renewable energy projects on the outer continental shelf. The partnership is made in an effort to pursue President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14008, which commits to creating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.
In an action mirroring President Biden’s executive order, Gov. Roy Cooper issued June 9 his own executive order, E.O. 218. According to a press release from his office, the order highlights “North Carolina’s commitment to offshore wind power.”
“Offshore wind power will help North Carolina create jobs and generate economic development while helping us transition to a clean energy economy,” Gov. Cooper said in the release. “North Carolina’s national leadership in clean energy and manufacturing, plus our highly trained workforce, create a strong business environment for offshore wind supply chain and manufacturing companies.”
BOEM public information officer Stephen Boutwell said in an email June 15 to the News-Times the bureau is “in the planning stages for potentially issuing additional wind leases offshore (of) North and South Carolina.”
June 9, 2021 — The road to Pebble Mine is getting rougher.
Pedro Bay Corp., a Native organization in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, announced late last month that nearly 90 percent of its shareholders voted in favor of conservation easements for more than 44,000 of the corporation’s 92,100 acres of land in southwest Alaska. The agreement would make the land off-limits to development, including Pebble Corp.’s proposed mining road.
June 8, 2021 — U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski visited Dillingham last week.
She said the primary reason for her visit was to gather ideas for permanent protections against developments like the proposed Pebble Mine.
Murkowski used to chair the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and has historically supported resource development. For years, she declined to support or oppose Pebble, saying it was important to wait for the federal permitting process to play out.
As the Army Corps of Engineers neared its final perit decision last year, and undercover tapes emerged of Pebble leaders doubting she’d take a stand against the project, Murkowski did just that.
In Dillingham, Murkowski met with people from the commercial, subsistence and recreational fisheries. She also held a closed meeting with select community leaders at the Dillingham Middle/High School.
May 28, 2021 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday it could take more than a year to weigh an appeal by a developer seeking to build a copper and gold mine in a region that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.
The corps’ Pacific Ocean Division in Hawaii is handling the appeal by the Pebble Limited Partnership, which was denied approval of a key permit for the project in Alaska‘s Bristol Bay region by the corps’ Alaska District.
A November decision signed by the district commander determined the proposed Pebble mine was “contrary to the public interest.”
The Pebble partnership in January filed an appeal request.
May 17, 2021 — Offshore wind developers have assured the commercial fishing industry all along that the thousands of massive turbines that they want to install in the ocean up and down the East Coast won’t block fishermen from waters where they make their living.
But the final approval issued this week for Vineyard Wind 1, the nation’s first major offshore wind farm, offers few guarantees to commercial fishermen.
Take for instance this passage from the Army Corps of Engineers in the Record of Decision for the 62-turbine project that would be built off the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts:
“While Vineyard Wind is not authorized to prevent free access to the entire wind development area, due to the placement of the turbines it is likely that the entire 75,614 acre area will be abandoned by commercial fisheries due to difficulties with navigation.”
April 19, 2021 — My camera lens is pressed against the window of the small floatplane as it flies below a thick ceiling of clouds. The mist clings to the hillsides of a temperate rainforest that descend steeply to the rocky coastline of southeast Alaska.
The plane banks, and a tiny village comes into view. A scattering of houses are built on stilts on the water’s edge. We circle and I see fishing boats tied up next to a large dock and a floating post office. The pilot throttles down and the pontoons skim across the glassy water inside the bay. We taxi to the public dock and I step out in front of the Point Baker general store.
Life along the Alaska coast is economically and culturally dependent on fishing. Each summer, millions of salmon — after maturing in the ocean — begin their journey back to the rivers in which they were spawned. Fishermen, along with whales, eagles and bears, share in the abundance.
Alaska is home to five species of Pacific salmon. These fish are anadromous; they begin their lives in freshwater rivers and lakes and eventually make their way down rivers and into the ocean. Depending on the species, salmon may spend between about one and seven years in the ocean before beginning their journey home to the freshwater where they were born.
The ability of salmon to find their way home is one of nature’s greatest miracles. Among other navigational aids, salmon can detect a single drop of water from its home stream mixed in 250 gallons of saltwater.
April 5, 2021 — Necessary design changes, along with delays from the COVID-19 pandemic, have stalled the construction of a new Guam Fishermen’s Cooperative Association facility. The initial groundbreaking ceremony was held in 2017.
Kin Flores, head of the committee overseeing the project, said officials were faced with various challenges. One of the first was compliance with the flood zone regulations. Much of Hagåtña is considered a flood zone. The co-op facility had to be raised 5 feet above ground level from the original design to comply with codes.
“Since then, it has gone through two versions of the design,” Flores said. “We’re at the final stages of completing. We’re reapplying for an Army Corps (of Engineers) permit for the new sea wall and also a (Department of Public Works) permit for the new building design. And that’s potentially scheduled for late this month or early in May when we can start that permitting process.”
Another factor was poor soil conditions nearer the sea wall, which is being built to reinforce the shoreline. This made the facility’s foundation design more expensive and required that it be moved farther away.
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.”