Thursday April 18, 2024
Alaska Beacon —
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dismissed an appeal filed by the Pebble Limited Partnership in its effort to obtain a key permit needed to build the controversial Pebble mine.
The decision, released on Monday, lets stand a permit denial issued by the Corps in 2020.
Rejection of the appeal is the latest setback for the would-be developer of the huge copper and gold mine proposed for the land upstream of Southwest Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay.
The biggest setback came in January 2023, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act to preclude Pebble or any metals mine like it in key Bristol Bay watersheds. The EPA action, which followed years of study and public hearings, was based on the agency determining that the Pebble mine would have “unacceptable adverse effects” on an ecosystem that supports commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries, as well as wildlife populations.