Northern Dynasty Reacts to Negative Federal Record of Decision on Pebble Project

Northern Dynasty announced that its 100 percent-owned, US-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership received formal notification from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) that its application for permits under the Clean Water Act and other federal statutes has been denied. The lead federal regulator found Pebble’s ‘compensatory mitigation plan’ as submitted earlier this month to be “non-compliant,” and that the project is “not in the public interest.”

Northern Dynasty called the decision politically motivated and said it is fundamentally unsupported by the administrative record as developed by the USACE through the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process for the Pebble Project. The company intends to launch an administrative appeal of the USACE permitting decision.

The company states: “The Final EIS found Pebble to be a project of merit that would fully co-exist with clean water, healthy fish and wildlife populations, and the important fisheries resources of southwest Alaska. The Final EIS also found that Pebble would make an important, positive socioeconomic contribution to the people and villages of Bristol Bay, Alaska – where full-time jobs are scarce and people face one of the highest costs of living in the country – as well as to the State of Alaska and the United States.

“Based on the positive findings of the Final EIS, conclusions by the USACE that development of the Pebble Project is ‘not in the public interest’ are wholly unsupported.