The Long Winding Road To Pebble: Understanding the Pebble Mine permitting process.

• Author: Friedman, Sam
• Position: NATURAL RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

The Pebble Mine project has never been closer to becoming reality. A favorable Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) published in July was a key step in the project's progression from concept to active mine.

But permitting a large, controversial project is seldom a linear process.

A few weeks after publication of the EIS, several new challenges for the project emerged that could further delay the mine or even completely sink the project's viability.

First came a fresh wave of opposition to the mine from national figures. Donald Trump Jr. voiced opposition to the project in an August 4 tweet. The next week Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted a segment to "the case against Alaska's Pebble Mine." In early August, Joe Biden announced his own opposition.

Then, on August 20, the US Army Corps of Engineers announced challenging wetland mitigation rules for Pebble that go beyond the usual requirements for Alaska mines.

Understanding the Permitting Process

An EIS is the cornerstone of the federal permitting process, so the July EIS was a major milestone for the Pebble Mine project.

Widely seen as favorable to the project, the document made sweeping statements about the potential gold, copper, and molybdenum mine's impact on salmon populations including that the mine "would not have measurable effects on the number of adult salmon" returning to the two watersheds around the mine site.

But a month after publishing a favorable EIS, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) sent mine developers a letter containing wetland mitigation requirements, including a directive that Pebble preserve wetlands within the same watershed as the mine to offset destroyed wetlands. Other mining projects in Alaska have had the option of fulfilling this Clean Water Act mitigation requirement by restoring or preserving wetlands from other parts of the state. Especially in a state as large as Alaska, an in-watershed mitigation requirement severely narrows the available options for developers.

For Pebble, mitigating the mine in-watershed will likely involve securing land or a conservation easement from the state, which owns most land in the area, says Bob Loeffle', a consultant who previously worked as the director of the Alaska Division of Mining, Land and Water during the Tony Knowles and Frank Murkowski administrations.

Any deal with the state would require a public process and likely result in delays to Pebble's federal permitting. "The state cannot sell development rights to Pebble without preparing a best interest finding and requesting public comment. Pebble has made no application to the state, and the state has not started any process to grant these rights to Pebble," Loeffler wrote in an August memo to his client, the Lake and Peninsula Borough Assembly. "It is unclear how and when, or even if, the state may...