There is no good time for the wrong mine

There is fact, and there is fiction. Case in point, the Pebble Limited Partnership is a peddler of fiction about its plans to build an enormous mine at the headwaters of one of Alaska’s most valuable and important wild sockeye salmon fisheries.

A few weeks ago, Bristol Bay Native Corp., or BBNC, obtained the expert agency comments on the preliminary final environmental impact statement for the proposed Pebble mine, a project currently under review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. These documents came via a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request. While we hoped that the latest assessment would be markedly different from the earlier Draft EIS, it is clear that too much remains the same.

The late Sen. Ted Stevens’ words from more than a decade ago still ring true: Pebble is the wrong mine in the wrong place.

You don’t need to take our word for it. Multiple federal and state agencies, cooperating tribes, and even the third-party contractor assigned to the project raised red flags about the deficiencies in Pebble’s mine design and the preliminary final EIS. From its effects on salmon, to potential water pollution, to unproven dam design, the latest National Environmental Policy Act analysis raises more questions than it answers.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the PFEIS “fails to acknowledge that habitat destruction and degradation associated with mine development (…) would erode the portfolio of habitat diversity and associated life history diversity that stabilize annual salmon returns to the Bristol Bay region.”

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources believes “it is not clear that the preliminary final environmental impact statement has considered risks, impacts, or mitigation of changes in operations or failures in the closure and post-closure periods and the respective obligations of the applicant.”

A second state agency, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, determined that the report offers “no support for conclusion that metals would be diluted to below ADEC groundwater cleanup levels.”

And AECOM, the third-party engineering firm conducting the environmental review on Pebble’s behalf, raised concerns about Pebble’s tailings impoundment design, acknowledging it may not function as well as Pebble expects.

On May 28, the Environmental Protection Agency went to the extraordinary step of sending the Army Corps a supplemental comment letter in which it again recognized the “significant economic, nutritional, cultural, ecological and recreational value” of Bristol Bay’s salmon populations. The letter highlighted the profound impacts Pebble would have on salmon, including the “permanent loss” of 2,292 acres of wetlands and 105.4 miles of streams and secondary impacts to even more. These are impacts that are unprecedented in Alaska or the history of the Clean Water Act.

None of this has deterred Pebble. It recently unveiled a new slogan and website using the deeply misleading catchphrase “right mine, right time.” This is the latest of many fictions Pebble has floated over recent years.

Pebble offers its proposed mine as economic opportunity for the state but has refused to produce an economic feasibility study for its proposed operations; it even talked to investors and the media about accessing state loan funds to build the necessary infrastructure. Pebble insists that it only wants a fair, science-based evaluation of its proposal, but has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists in Washington, D.C., since 2018 and directly lobbied Gov. Mike Dunleavy to advocate on its behalf with President Trump. It even went so far as giving the governor bulleted talking points.

For Alaskans, it should come down to a question of trust. Do you believe the company that is touting this as a “multi-generational” project to investors and outspending all other mining companies on lobbyists, or the state and federal science professionals tasked with objectively assessing how a proposal will affect valuable and important fishery resources?

The good news is that there is still time to say no to Pebble, or at the very least demand that the questions raised be legitimately and fairly answered before the process takes another step forward.

The Army Corps of Engineers can still reject Pebble’s permit application and the Environmental Protection Agency can still intervene and act on its concerns to block the permit. In addition, Pebble must apply for more than 60 state permits, giving state regulators the opportunity to demand better answers to their questions.

We are living in an age where solid, reliable data is increasingly difficult to find. However, with respect to Pebble, the facts are clear. There is no good time for the wrong mine.

Joseph L. Chythlook is Chairman of Bristol Bay Native Corp.’s Board of Directors and a lifelong Bristol Bay commercial fisherman.

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