The US Army Corps of Engineers is poised to give its blessing later this week to an Alaska copper and gold mining project the Obama administration tried to block because of concerns it could harm the state’s salmon industry.
A final environmental impact statement (EIS) recommending development of Northern Dynasty Minerals’ Pebble mine will be released on Friday, with a notice scheduled to be published in the Federal Register, Dave Hobbie, regulatory chief for the Army Corps’s Alaska District, said in a Monday telephone news conference.
Release of the final EIS would mark a dramatic reversal in a nearly two-decade saga over a project that is widely opposed by Alaskans, especially those in the Bristol Bay region.