North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

The U.S. House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee released a report accusing proponents of the proposed Pebble copper mine in Southwest Alaska of carrying out a 'bait and switch' permitting scheme designed to evade regulations and develop an open pit mine in the watershed of Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Chair of the Committee Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), and Chair of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA) released a report titled, "NO CURRENT PLANS... "Pebble LP, Sham Permitting, and False Testimony Threatening the World's Largest Salmon Habitat."

"This report exposes in damning detail how Pebble LP tried to use 'bait and switch' sham permitting scheme to sneak an environmentally disastrous pit mine project past Congress, regulators, and the Native Alaskans whose ancestral land and way of life would be devasted by their greed," said DeFazio. "Pebble LP's chief executive at the time asserted before our committee that he had 'no current plans' to extend the life of the 20-year mine project for which they were seeking approval. The report we are releasing today exposes that claim as a shameless lie using Pebble LP's own internal communications and investor slide decks. As a result, we are forwarding the evidence of Tom Collier's false statements to Congress to the Attorney General's office for further review."

The report proceeds in detail recommendations to prevent any future attempts to undermine the federal permitting process by:

• Ensuring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies have authority, training, personnel, and resources for consistent and rigorous oversight throughout the permitting and environmental review process.

• Reforming the Corps and Environmental Protection Agency's project review processes to add scrutiny and ensure holistic review of cumulative impacts of projects.

• Continue to exercise active Congressional oversight, as well as other Congressional authorities, especially where damage to irreplaceable ecosystems and national assets are at issue.

• And finally, exploring legislative protections for the Bristol Bay watershed beyond the 404(c) Clean Water Act actions currently under review with the EPA.

The full report can be read at: https://transportation.house.gov/download/ti-committee-pebble-mine-report-and-appendix-1.

In response to this announcement, United Tribes of Bristol Bay Executive Director Alannah Hurley had this to say.

"We are not surprised that Pebble has yet tried to deceive lawmakers and the public about their true plans. From their sham of a mine plan to the Pebble tapes, the company has proven time and again they're not to be trusted."

Pebble baffled

Now, three years after Collier's testimony on Capitol Hill and two years after resigning from his executive position at Pebble Partnership, representatives are reopening an apparently closed case.

Pebble Partnership and its parent, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. expressed disappointment in the political bias of the report.

"To begin, we have not had time to fully review the 163 page report," said Pebble Limited Partnership CEO John Shively. "It was clearly shared with some of the media before it was shared with us. Thus, our comments are initial and we will have more to share with the public."

"We want to be absolutely clear, however, that to the extent the report contains any suggestion that we tried to mislead regulators in any way, it is categorically wrong and misinformed of the realities of the Pebble permitting process," he added. "We have been forthright and clear in all of our public communications and with regulators that Pebble would need to be permitted in phases."

Shively said the Pebble Partnership has been clear to stakeholders on three major points about Pebble and the company's plans to build a mine there:

• Pebble Partnership plans to construct and operate an initial mine at Pebble for twenty years.

• The initial plan would not mine the entire world-class resource found at Pebble.

• At some future time, Pebble Mine developers would likely consider an expansion.

Shively continues by repeating what was already well documented in the environmental impact statement completed during the federal Pebble permitting process, that the possibility of an expansion was something that exists.

"We have been up front that the resources and opportunity at Pebble are significant and that any future opportunity would require another comprehensive permitting process," the Pebble Partnership executive said. "We openly shared all of this with the committee and are extremely disappointed with the politicization of the so-called review of the project that is inconsistent with reality. We look forward to laying out the essential context missing from the report."

With clear hostility in the language used to portray Pebble through this report, Thiessen addressed the adverse effect of such a weighted submission.

"Here we go again with the politics replacing 'reality, science and facts'," he said. "We have been consistent in our disclosure for more than a decade that we are permitting a 20 year mine and, although the resource is much, much larger than that, any additional work, extension or expansion would require extensive permitting, planning and approvals before it could be undertaken."

The Northern Dynasty executive added that an assertion that a larger mine could be built and operated at Pebble without an entirely new permit approval process does not understand how the federal mine permitting process works in the U.S.

"The T&I committee is playing a risky, short-sighted political game in D.C., with a misguided goal of inhibiting domestic mining," Theisen continued. "The current administration's persistent opposition to mining and mine development in the U.S. is bad for local economic development in Alaska, bad for the energy transition and bad for the vast majority of the U.S. population."

Pebble Partnership is still reviewing the report and plans to respond more thoroughly once that review is complete.