The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - December 2, 2022
A view of the landscape that lies over the world-class Pebble copper-gold-silver-molybdenum-rhenium deposit about 80 miles northeast of Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy delivers opening remarks at the 2022 Resource Development Council convention in Anchorage.
Alarmed by the precedent that would be set if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is successful in issuing a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine through the extension of its authority under the federal Clean Water Act, Gov. Mike Dunleavy says his administration is prepared to defend Alaska's right and obligation to develop resources on state lands.
"The State of Alaska has the duty, under our constitution, to develop its resources to the maximum in order to provide for itself and its people, so it's important that any and all opportunities be explored in furtherance of this idea," said Dunleavy. "Our opportunities to show the world a better way to develop our resources should not be unfairly pre-empted by the Biden administration under a solely political act. This sets a very troubling precedent for the State and the country."
The Alaska governor's vow to take EPA to court is in response to the federal agency's Dec. 1 decision to advance a determination to restrict the ability to store mined material in the area of Southwest Alaska where the world-class Pebble copper-gold-silver-molybdenum-rhenium deposit is located.
EPA Region 10, which covers the Pacific Northwest states and Alaska, asserts that its preemptive strike to ensure that large-scale mining could not take place at the Pebble project site is needed to protect the world-class salmon fishery in the Bristol Bay Watershed.
"EPA Region 10's action represents the third step in EPA's four-step Clean Water Act Section 404(c) review process," said Casey Sixkiller, administrator of EPA Region 10. "If affirmed by EPA's Office of Water, this action would help protect salmon fishery areas that support world-class commercial and recreational fisheries and that have sustained Alaska Native communities for thousands of years, supporting a subsistence-based way of life for one of the last intact wild salmon-based cultures in the world."
The Dec. 1 decision by EPA follows a May 2022 Proposed Determination by Section 10 to prohibit "disposal sites for the discharge of dredged or fill material for the construction and routine operation of the mine plan described in Pebble Limited Partnership's June 8, 2020 CWA Section 404 Permit application, as well as future proposals to construct and operate a mine to develop the Pebble Deposit that would result in the same or greater levels of loss or change to aquatic resources."
If elevated to a final determination by EPA's Office of Water in Washington, D.C., Section 10's recommendation would make it impossible for the Pebble Partnership to gain federal authorizations for the mine permits it submitted.
The company was on the cusp of having its federal mining permits approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2020. In July of that year, the Corps issued a final environmental impact statement that found the proposed mine for Pebble "would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers or result in long-term changes to the health of the commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay."
Highlighted benefits outlined in the executive summary of the 2020 final EIS include:
• No expected impacts on subsistence harvest levels.
• There would be no measurable change in the number of returning salmon.
• The increase in job opportunities and lower cost of living would have beneficial impacts on the EIS analysis area during construction and operations of the project.
• Having a new economic hub in the area is expected to reduce or eliminate the current decline in local population due to the increase in employment opportunities.
• A mine at Pebble would also generate $27 million annually in severance taxes for the Lake and Peninsula Borough during operations, plus annual property tax revenue to the Kenai Peninsula Borough.
• Pebble is also expected to generate $25 million annually in state taxes through construction, and $84 million annually in state taxes and royalty payments during the operations phase.
"The Final EIS and subsequent Economic Impact Assessment clearly demonstrate the dramatic impact responsible Pebble development could have for these communities," said Pebble Limited Partnership CEO John Shively. "The benefits are indisputable."
Despite the final EIS detailing a large economic upside and little downside to developing a mine at Pebble, Corps decided not to approve permits when issuing its record of decision in December 2020.
Both the state of Alaska and Pebble Partnership appealed the Corps' 2022 Pebble ROD on the grounds that the federal regulatory agency neglected to follow its own guidance when denying the Clean Water Act Section 404 permit for the proposed mine.
A decision on this appeal has yet to be reached and would be of little consequence if the EPA approves a final determination that voids the permits applied for.
EPA's decision to move one step closer to making it impossible to develop a world-class-scale mine at Pebble was hailed as a major environmental win by conservation groups and others opposed to having a mine developed about 80 miles from Bristol Bay.
"EPA did the right thing today. Bristol Bay is the world's finest salmon fishery," said Trout Unlimited President and CEO Chris Wood. "We urge Administrator (Michael) Regan to finalize the protections for Bristol Bay as soon as possible."
Bonnie Gestring, the northwest program director at Earthworks, is urging the Biden administration to finalize the decision to restrict mining at Pebble by the end of the year.
"We can't afford to lose any more time to the uncertainty that has hung over Bristol Bay communities for years," she penned in a Dec. 2 statement.
Pebble proponents, however, contend that EPA's continuation of a process to bar the proposed mine is politically motivated and without foundation.
"The process and the decision have been political from the start, as evidenced by White House Climate Change Advisor Gina McCarthy's stating in November of 2021 that the administration would shut down the project once and for all while praising the action with a 'hallelujah,'" said Shively.
"The EPA has made wildly speculative claims about possible adverse impacts from Pebble's development that are not supported by any defensible data and are in direct contradiction to the facts validated in the USACE's Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Pebble Project," the Pebble Partnership CEO added. "The FEIS clearly states that Pebble can be developed without harm to the Bristol Bay fishery. EPA's speculation about impacts is not the same as demonstrating impacts will occur and is not a valid reason for issuing a veto."
The EPA's proposed preemptive decision is also counter to the Biden administration's push to lower America's carbon dioxide emissions with an aggressive push toward electric vehicles charged with low-carbon energy.
The World Bank estimates that roughly 1.1 trillion pounds of copper will be needed for low-carbon technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles over the next 25 years, which is roughly equivalent to the total copper mined since the dawn of the Bronze Age some 5,000 years ago.
Pebble hosts 6.5 billion metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 0.4% (57 billion lb) copper, 0.34 grams per metric ton (71 million ounces) gold, 240 parts per million (3.4 billion lb) molybdenum, 1.7 g/t (345 million oz) silver and 0.41 ppm (2.6 million kg) rhenium.
This world-class deposit also hosts 4.5 billion metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.25% (25 billion lb) copper, 0.25 g/t (36 million oz) gold, 226 ppm (2.2 billion lb) molybdenum, 1.2 g/t (170 million oz) silver and 0.36 ppm (1.6 million kg) rhenium.
"The EPA is choosing to sterilize the world's largest undeveloped deposit of much needed copper, gold, silver, molybdenum and rhenium, and this decision cannot stand, because the future of Alaska and the Green Energy Transition is being threatened," said Ronald Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty, which owns the Pebble Partnership. "So, we will fight for the right of the residents of southwest Alaska to have full-time jobs and a better quality of life; for the future of Alaska as the world transitions away from oil and gas; and for the U.S. as it moves to cleaner sources of energy, which requires substantial increases of domestic copper production for there to be any chance of success."
Aside from the revenues Alaska stands to lose from a federal decision that would put the brakes on developing a mine that would feed copper into America's green energy economy, the Dunleavy administration is concerned that once EPA uses CWA 404(c) to veto a project before the issuance of permits, the agency will wield this wider authority to arbitrarily ban projects that would otherwise be authorized under America's strict environmental laws.
"This is an incredible power for a federal agency – staffed by unelected officials, unaccountable to Alaskans – to have," said Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Jason Brune.
This ability to veto projects being evaluated by the Army Corps has implications beyond Alaska.
"If this goes unchallenged, this issue will become precedent-setting, potentially for other states as well," said Dunleavy.
This is why 13 states – Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming – joined Alaska in a September letter in opposition to EPA Region 10's proposed decision.
"If Region 10's proposed determination is adopted, it will affirm an expansive, unconstrained interpretation of EPA's 404(c) power – effectively creating a 404(c) wild card, playable at whim to stop projects," the 14 states penned in the letter to Sixkiller. "Such a power introduces profound uncertainty into the 404 permitting process and, by extension, the investment climate; and undermines steps taken by Congress and President Biden to lessen our Nation's mineral dependence on other countries, like China, in pursuit of a renewable energy economy of our own."
Region 10, however, has now elevated the proposed determination to the recommended status. EPA headquarters now has 60 days to decide whether to elevate this recommendation to a final decision to severely restrict mining activities at the Pebble deposit.
Calling EPA's decision "legally indefensible," Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor indicated that his office would defend Alaska's rights in court should EPA proceed with finalization.
"Rest assured, my Administration will stand up for the rights of Alaskans, Alaska property owners, and Alaska's future," said Dunleavy.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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