Northern Dynasty Reacts to Negative Federal Record of Decision on Pebble Project
Northern Dynasty Minerals
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.
“At a time when the United States has declared a ‘national emergency’ due to its over-reliance on foreign producers for critical minerals required to ensure the country’s future economic and military security, it is unconscionable to determine that permitting and development of one of the greatest accumulations of strategic and critical minerals ever discovered on American soil is ‘not in the public interest’.
“President-elect Biden’s campaign recently said his administration would support boosting domestic production of copper and other metals necessary for the production of clean and renewable energy technologies, and a transition to a lower carbon future.”
Northern Dynasty confirmed that the Pebble Partnership will appeal the USACE permitting decision within the sixty-day window provided for it to do so.
“For the United States to turn its back on an opportunity to develop these minerals here at home in a manner that US regulators have agreed is environmentally safe and responsible, and to do so for purely political reasons, is not just short-sighted,” says Northern Dynasty President & CEO Ron Thiessen. “It’s self-destructive.”
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