Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX: NDM) seems to be right back on track towards obtaining final permits for its proposed copper-gold mine in Alaska after the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declined to subject the project to water pollution restrictions evaluations., which have effectively stalled the project since they were outlined in 2014.
The move reduces likelihood of a potential confrontation with the Army Corps of Engineers over the company’s proposed Pebble copper-gold-silver mine, near Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska.
Move reduces likelihood of a potential confrontation with the Army Corps of Engineers over the copper-gold-silver mine in southwest Alaska.
It also paves the way for a positive federal licence decision later this summer, which would allow Northern Dynasty’s subsidiary — Pebble Limited Partnership — to begin building the mine.
Pebble scored last year a big win after the EPA scrapped the proposed restrictions on mining operations in Bristol Bay, which prevented the project’s consideration.
The agency, however, also issued a letter saying the project “may” result in substantial and unacceptable impacts to aquatic resources. Such observation was a specific step in a sequence established to deal with inter-agency disagreements over Clean Water Act permits.
Yesterday, however, it issued fresh a letter downplaying the possible loss of streams and other wetlands the project might cause.
Northern Dinasty is calling it “another indication of positive progress for the project.”
Opponents to the mine say EPA’s new stance makes a potential veto on the Army Corps of Engineers’ dredge and fill permit less likely.
Checkered past
Pebble’s development has been surrounded by controversy and delays, including the EPA’s decision in 2014 to propose restricting the discharge of mining waste and other material in the area.
Criticism prompted the Vancouver-based company to submit a new, smaller mine plan that includes lined tailings, and discard the use of cyanide in the gold extraction process.
The miner was finally able to move forward with the project’s permitting process after Donald Trump assumed as President of the US.
For decades, explorers and developers have been attracted to resources-rich southwestern Alaska, known for holding significant deposits of gold, copper, molybdenum and other minerals near the headwaters of two rivers flowing into Bristol Bay.
But conservationists, local activists, fishermen and federal regulators have argued that industrial, open-pit mining operations to extract the lode threatens the region’s thriving sockeye salmon fishery.
More to come…