Pebble Mine – Water Policy Consulting LLC

Get Hal Shepherd’s new book “Return to Ekeunick’s Time – Defending Waters and Tradition in the Arctic”

One of the primary motivations

behind the campaign for Alaska’s statehood was the impact of large canneries on salmon that used fish traps and wheels to drain returning runs. At the same time, due to the lack of the Territory’s regulatory authority and because federal authorities were under the control of corporate interests, these canneries avoided paying taxes and laws to protect the fishery.

Return to Ekunick’s Time looks at how, as the 49th state to enter the union, Alaska had the benefit of observing the mistakes made by other states that were beginning to experience environmental degradation due to industrial extraction. As such, in the early years after statehood, the State was a leader in creating and enforcing environmental policy which, together with the emerging activism of Alaska Native communities, played a part in the birth of the nationwide environmental movement.

Eventually, however, the lure of the riches, particularly from the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, became too much for Alaska’s political leadership, and over the past 50 years, the extraction industry has dominated state policies. Today, under a series of conservative politicians in power at both the federal and state levels (as championed particularly by the former Trump administration), resource extraction corporations are once again having substantial impacts on water and subsistence resources relied upon by Alaska Native communities.

At the same time, after a campaign led by powerful industrial interests and conservative politicians to discredit the environmental movement, today tribal leaders and everyday citizens in Alaska are hailing a new era of protecting water resources by emphasizing traditional values and management strategies in the face of existential threats from climate change and politics. According to Alaska Native author William Oquilluck, during the time of Ekeunick – the legendary leader of the Inupiat people in ancient times – “the Eskimo’s ancestors did not use their minds like later times when they invented tools, clothes, houses, boats, and weapons. They had no worries about living.”

Could the return to traditional values as a means of addressing the impacts of climate change and mismanagement of natural resources, help to move the needle towards a return to times when Alaska Native people will no longer have to worry about the survival of their traditions and culture?

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Reversing Trump’s Environmental Policies Under a Biden Administration will be a Tall Order

This year’s presidential election was a close race in a handful of states. When the Associated Press announced that, for just the second time in 70 years, with the help from the Native vote, announced a decisive win for Democrat Joe Biden announced an ambitious Indian Policy as part of his campaign, over President Trump on November 7, 2020. This was partly due to record turnout throughout the country, including pivotal votes from Native Americans in key states. As of 2018, the state of Arizona alone which turned from red to blue this election cycle, members of federally recognized tribes made almost 6% of the population and the Navajo Nation alone contains around 67,000 eligible voters.

The question on everyone’s mind is whether a Biden win will end Trump’s war on the environment. If the democrats do not become the majority party in the senate, in order to stay on track with his environmental agenda, Biden will need to rely primarily on executive actions and essential legislative measures like tax reform, the federal budget and the Farm Bill. Just hours after the United States officially withdrew from the Paris accord, on the day after the election, for example, Biden announced that he would reverse that decision on the first day of his term in office.

During his candidacy, Biden also pledged to reverse several of Trump’s Alaska initiatives including drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and issuing a permit to develop the Pebble Mine. Also, in relation to Alaska Native Tribes Biden plans to create a new division of the Justice Department that will focus on environmental and climate justice and to incorporate environmental justice throughout EPA programs.

The key will be how hard will the Trump administration push for completion of it’s resource extraction agenda before he leaves office on January 20. Although, The Trump administration recently issued a request to energy companies to identify what specific land areas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be offered for sale, this will be difficult due to the remaining environmental analysis, leasing logistics and the fact that global banks continue to adopt policies stating that they will not fund drilling in the Arctic due to climate change. And there’s also the fact that many of the Trump administrations decisions affecting BLM lands, including ANWR and the NPRA leasing were made by Scott Pendly who has been serving illegally as the Director of the Bureau of Land Management for the past 14 months.

Never one to let a small thing like the law get in the way of opening lands up to resource extraction activity however, Trump could simple move to put leases in ANWR and open up areas to mining, despite federal laws or even court orders to the contrary before leaving office. And then there’s the fact that Trump has not conceded the elections results to Biden and may not leave the Whitehouse at all.

Trump Puts the Pause on Pebble Mine

A reprieve in the contentious Pebble Mine project came from an unlikely source, when President Trump paused the permitting process for the gold, copper, and molybdenum mine in Southwestern Alaska after previously backing the project. Located in the headwaters of the lucrative Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery, the project is slated to include the largest earthen dam ever built, despite being located in a seismically active region. The 20 square-mile pit mine would require roads and a gas pipeline through pristine wilderness near Lake Iliamna and Lake Clark. Brown bears, wolves, moose, caribou, waterfowl, and all five species of Pacific salmon, along with some 7,500 people, mostly traditional Natives, live in the region likely to be most impacted by the mine.

Trump is calling for additional information from the Pebble Limited Partnership about environmental mitigation from the degradation caused by the project. In a letter to the Partnership, the Corps listed new requirements that would need to occur in order to mitigate the impacts of Pebble to the Bristol Bay ecosystem including compensation for impacts on 2,825 acres of open water and 129.5 stream miles within the Koktuli River watershed and on 460 acres of wetlands, 231 acres of open water and 55 stream miles along the transportation corridor and port sites. The agency gave the partnership 90 days to update their plan to address these impacts. This sudden about-face appears to have been prompted by statements made by Trumps eldest son, an avid fisherman who has fished in the region, as well as other influential Republicans who have Trumps ear.

EPA Should Veto Pebble Permit

In 2017, the US Army Corps of Engineers released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) to develop the world’s largest copper mine in the Bristol Bay watershed, located in the sensitive headwaters of Bristol Bay in Southwestern Alaska. The Mine which is proposed by the foreign-based Pebble Limited Partnership would destroy several miles of streams which are critical the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world and upon which twenty-five federally recognized tribal governments depend for subsistence. In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, the Corp was chartered with drafting the EIS to analyze in detail, the environmental impacts of proposed projects.

Next to the Project Chariot when, in the 1950s, the United States Atomic Energy Commission proposed to detonate an atomic bomb off the coast of the Chukchi Sea in order to create harbor there, the Pebble Mine could be the most contentious industrial development activity ever proposed in Alaska. Due to its potential impact on water and salmon resources, it risks the economic and cultural lifeblood of the region. As a result, the mine is opposed not only by 80 percent of Bristol Bay’s residents but also by a broad spectrum of entities that include commercial fishermen, businesses, sportsmen, and conservation groups.

Yet, despite the fact that public citizens, commercial interests, tribes, conservation organizations, and even an international mining corporation oppose this environmentally and economically disastrous Mine, the Corps under the Trump Administration, established a flawed NEPA analysis in its rush to permit it. As a result, the Pebble Mine has been referred to by the conservation community as “quite simply one of the most reckless Projects anywhere in the world today.” Last year, when opening the Oversight Committee hearings regarding the mine, Congressman Peter DeFazio, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, called it “an abomination” and stated that “the Pebble Mine proposal is a bad idea made even worse by the sham review process currently underway.”

Under the current proposal and future development plans, the mine would be so destructive to the environment and the Alaska economy that there has been a consistent pattern of major investors walking away from the project once they understand the overwhelming opposition and unavoidable environmental and economic risks. The fourth major firm to abandon the project since 2011, First Quantum Minerals Ltd., which had provided $37.5 million upfront and pledged $150 million over the following three years to fund the permitting process in exchange for a 50 percent share, pulled out in late May of 2018.

When the Final EIS for the project was released last month, a string of politicians, and other public figures came out in opposition to Pebble. For the first time cracks in the Trump Administration’s relentless anti-environmental regulatory strategy arose when Donald Trump, Jr. tweeted “As a sportsman who has spent plenty of time in the area I agree [that] the headwaters of Bristol Bay and surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with…Pebble Mine.” Similarly, long time extraction industry supporter, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, who after reviewing the Final EIS stated:

“… I am increasingly concerned that the final EIS may not adequately address the issues identified in the draft EIS regarding the full risks of the project as proposed to the Bristol Bay watershed and fishery… These processes should also not be rushed or fast-tracked, especially given the size and complexity of this particular project.”

While Sen. Sullivan, however, has expressed concern for the obviously flawed EIS process, so far, he is not off the fence yet as indicated by his statement that “While it is a major step in the permitting process, it must be emphasized that the Final EIS is not a decision document. The final EIS for the Pebble Mine is the first step in a long, demanding permitting process….”

In 30 years of working in the area of environmental law and policy, however, unless stopped by a lawsuit or legislation, I can’t remember a single project that was not given the go-ahead after it was recommended in a Final EIS.

When the FEIS was released on July 24, there are now, less than a couple of weeks remaining before the final decision on the permit and for the Environmental Protection Agency to veto the project. Dan Sullivan and other politicians need to take a firm stand and pressure the agency to do just that.

Trump Administration Adopts Navigable Waters Protection Rule

Last month the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers announced the signing of a new water rule which finalizes the Trump administrations process for revising the definition for the Waters of the U.S. According to the EPA, the final “Navigable Waters Protection Rule…protects the nation’s navigable waters from pollution and result in economic growth across the country.” The new rule, however, limits the number and types of waters that are protected by the Clean Water Act to just four categories: territorial seas and traditional navigable waters, perennial and intermittent tributaries, certain lakes, ponds, and water impoundments, and wetlands adjacent to these categories.

The new rule, therefore, eliminates existing protections for water coming from rainfall, groundwater, farm, roadside and other ditches, prior converted cropland, farm and stock watering ponds, and waste treatment systems which are hydrologically connected to navigable waters and could therefore spread pollutants on to such waters. The NWPR, leaves intact, state and tribal laws in managing water resources within their own jurisdictions some of which have broader definitions than the federal government for waters that come under such regulatory jurisdiction.

To Learn more see the EPA’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule website or News Release.

Removal of Protections of Salmon Habitat in Bristol Bay Surrounded by Controversy

Stating that by withdrawing safeguards for Bristol Bay in order to pave the way for development of the Pebble Mine, “the [Environmental Protection Agency] has handicapped its own scientists’ ability to protect a place” that the agency itself, has described, as having “unparalleled ecological value, boasting salmon diversity and productivity unrivaled anywhere in North America,” several groups representing Bristol Bay tribes and fishermen filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Anchorage in an effort to force the agency to restore the protections.

The Plaintiffs, including the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Bristol Bay Native Association – a consortium of 31 tribes, the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association and Bristol Bay Reserve Association, two groups representing fishermen, and the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit promoting economic growth, have asked the federal district court in Anchorage to decide that the revocation of the 2014 determination made under the Clean Water Act, was arbitrary and capricious. The 40-page complaint states that, in withdrawing the 2014 proposed determination, EPA “failed to consider the substantive findings it made in support” of the determination that the Mine could cause significant harm to the environment.

According to Ralph Andersen who is the chief executive of BBNA, regarding the lawsuit, the Trump “administration not only broke the law, it made clear that local people have no voice in the management of our rivers, our streams and wetlands,… But the people of Bristol Bay are not pushovers.”

Shortly after the lawsuite was filed, Earthworks, a Washington-based advocacy group, filed a complaint with the New Jersey Bureau of the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate related to Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. – the Pebble Mine parent company possible insider trading. According to the complaint there was flurry of stock trades and communication in the days prior to the decision to revoke EPA’s section 401© certification that substantially improved the prospects for the Mine as indicated by price of the company’s stocks raising dramatically after the EPA’s decision was publicly announced last summer. A spokesman for Northern Dynasty called the allegations “entirely false and without merit” and denied any wrongdoing by the company.