Dispute over controversial Alaska mining proposal drags forward in federal court

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CN) – Under President Donald Trump, the federal government has largely indicated it would better pursue “Extraordinary Resource Potential,” to quote a Trump executive orderthan to maintain long-term environmental protection.

In Alaska, pending litigation, this can result in massive tracts of land falling into corporate hands. But when it comes to a Bristol Bay mining project proposed by a Canadian-owned company, the feds are waging a war — one that began under the Obama administration.

“This is a rare issue on which multiple Democratic and Republican administrations have agreed,” Peter Van Tuyn, attorney for the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC), said at a June 25 oral hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska.

BBNC is one of several Alaska Native and conservation groups that have intervened as defendants in the case, arguing that Bristol Bay salmon habitats are likely to face permanent negative impacts from large-scale mining in the area. Native tribes, including the Yup’ik and Dena’ina, depend on salmon for a living, and Bristol Bay hosts a “multi-billion dollar” commercial fishing industry, Van Tuyn said.

The project, known as the Pebble Mine and led by Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., will extract primarily copper, gold and molybdenum, a mineral with military and industrial applications. The Northern Dynasty has hypnotized deposit as “one of the largest deposits of mineral wealth ever discovered”.

In court Thursday, Pebble attorneys argued alongside the state of Alaska, which owns the land proposed for development. Alaska Chief Counsel Michael Connelly described the situation as a property rights issue, claiming the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped legal bounds by blocking the mine.

Citing the Alaska and US Constitutions, Connelly made his case before US District Judge Sharon Gleason that the Alaska state government should be the “primary regulator of land and water use” in the Last Frontier.

The US Army Corps of Engineers, which UNITED it examines and issues statements on “actions that significantly affect the quality of the human environment,” it had gone back and forth for the project, initially sparking it in July 2020 before Pebble was denied a download permit months later. In 2023, under President Joe Biden, the EPA stepped in, calling the Clean Water Act to lock the project entirely.

Connelly said the EPA should only act as a “back of the funnel,” rather than getting involved when it did. Pebble’s lead counsel, Keith Bradley, challenged the agency’s interpretation of section 404(c) of the Clean Water Actwhich “authorizes EPA to prohibit, limit, or deny the discharge of dredged or fill material to designated areas in waters of the United States” if it determines that the disposal “would have an unacceptable adverse impact” on natural resources.

“Relevant is not the same as unacceptable,” Bradley said.

Attorney Luke Wake, representing two Alaska Native corporations that SUPPORTING mining project for its potential economic benefits, made a Gleason-like case that “unacceptable” was an “empty vessel” term, and compared it to the word “nuisance.”

Laura Brown, a Justice Department environmental attorney, argued that salmon spawning habitat would be destroyed by dumping mine waste, called Pebble’s estimates of the impact on salmon populations “absurd” and said 2,100 acres of nearby wetlands would also be adversely affected.

“To protect adult fish, you have to protect them at every stage of the life cycle,” Brown said.

At the end of the nearly 150-minute hearing, Gleason, an Obama appointee, thanked all parties for their “thorough” remarks and said she would make a decision in the near future.