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Bristol Bay area. (Courtesy of the EPA)
After weeks of heated debate the U.S. federal court in Alaska has said it won’t rule on the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to use a regulatory provision to block Pebble Mine from being built until at least January 2, 2015.
In a press release late Wednesday the company behind the project, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (TSX:NDM) (NYSE MKT:NAK) said the EPA has agreed not to attempt using the Clean Water Act Section 404(c) until the date set by Judge H. Russel Holland.
The magistrate noted his court must resolve a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by the Pebble Limited Partnership challenging EPA’s authority to pre-emptively impose development restrictions on Pebble prior to the submission of a proposed development plan to state and federal agencies.
EPA attacks
The EPA has said it issued such proposal “. . . to protect one of the world’s most valuable salmon fisheries, in Bristol Bay, Alaska, from the risks posed by large-scale mining at the Pebble deposit.”
“Science has shown that development of this mine, which is backed by Northern Dynasty Minerals and the Pebble Limited Partnership, would be one of the largest open pit copper mines in the world and would threaten one of the world’s most productive salmon fisheries,” EPA said in July.
But the group seeking to develop the massive copper-gold mine says the agency’s study is biased. In a lawsuit it says, according to Associated Press, that EPA violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act and held secret meetings with de facto advisory committees in drafting the report.
Miners respond
The Pebble Partnership insists that if built, Pebble would create thousands of jobs and provide an economic base for an economically depressed region that would last for decades.
The proposed Pebble Mine, 320 km southwest of Anchorage, is within the Bristol Bay watershed.
Estimates are the project would also generate $165 million to $213 million in annual tax and royalty revenue to the state as well as taxes to the Lake and Peninsula Borough, the regional municipality.
Anglo American (LON:AAL) left the project last year, handing its 50% stake in the project back to Northern Dynasty and taking a $300 million write down in the process. Rio Tinto (LON, ASX:RIO) followed Anglo’s steps in April, announcing it was donating its 19.1% stake in Northern Dynasty to two Alaskan charities.
The State of Alaska has intervened in the case in support of Pebble Partnership because the mine would be on state-owned lands. Those lands are classified for mineral development in the state’s regional land management.
4 Comments
Prospector
The operatives within the EPA have made a stupid mistake, by drafting a report based on a fantasy mine, designed to fail and intended to scare the public into supporting denial of lawful due process to Pebble. All Pebble needs to do is draft a response saying, in effect “That is not the plan that we would submit. We will design a mine that we believe will succeed. Not one that we know would fail.” The operatives within EPA played a fool’s hand. They are not smart enough to know this.
Further, EPA is forcing the State of Alaska to defend the owner of the mineral rights. These are state lands, open for mineral entry. The mining claims are legal and conform to state mining statute. It is a very small leap to legally and logically conclude that the presumption that mining would take place on a lawful mining claim is valid. The EPA is circumventing the promises made to Alaska under ANILCA. It’s too late for them to attempt to pre-empt development of state lands, especially in a quasi-legal manner.
Lastly, the State of Alaska has been collecting claim rents and requiring annual labor to be performed on the claims in order for the claim owners to maintain their right to mineral extraction. The claim owners had a reasonable expectation that if they located an economic ore deposit and that if they followed the law and did everything the right way, they would be able to mine it, subject to due process. For the State of Alaska to allow the EPA to extinguish those mineral rights would be a basis for suit against SOA for fraud and un-constitutional (state & federal) taking. Alaska must defend the rights of the mineral location owner against the federal gov’t. The EPA has functionally, screwed Alaska and provided Pebble the legal basis for a multi-billion dollar settlement with the state (IOW – our Permanent Fund), if EPA pursues their stupidly, illegal enforcement of bad regulations.
Solution: Prosecute and rid the EPA of the idiots that dreamed up this scheme and conspired with certain NGOs and a particular billionaire (with the fishing lodge on Lake Illiamna) to defraud the public. Then, enforce the law as written, not as fabricated by idiot bureaucrats with an axe to grind.
Uncle MO
Govt is out of control
Raven
Prospector, You are mistaken. The billionaire has in >10 bedroom, 2 story stone, lodge and 5,000 foot paved runway for jets, on a peninsular on Lake Clark, that he has managed somehow to have been allowed to build in Lake Clark National Park. This hypocrite has made his money on oil and gas and mineral investments and is using it to keep his country estate private. He has even convinced some that the mine would pollute Lake Clark. Why anyone would believe that water from the mine, now, let alone over the millions of years it has already been sitting there, would flow UP the hydrologic gradient, across two drainages flowing away from the direction of Lake Clark, attests to the slickness of the ad’s of the anti-mining protesters and the gullibility of listeners, who do not take the time to do independent checks.
Also, the EPA executive had already made up their minds, with the help of the billionaire, before their report was written. The report was written to follow their unscientific, purely personal conclusions. This connection should be looked at and the EPA heads prosecuted.
The photo used to head this article is also misleading and Pebble does not look anything like that. It is a mundane piece of tundra like many other places in Alaska. Yet the author of this article shows it , COURTESY of the EPA, again biasing the unknowing.
The photo, attached, is of Pebble area as it looks, like most of Alaska, in winter.
Raven
This is mundane Pebble in winter, like most of Alaska.