EPA to drop restrictions on Alaska mine
Mining industry seeing promising signs with Trump
JUNEAU, Alaska — In a sharp reversal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to remove a major obstacle for the company seeking to develop a massive copper and gold deposit near the headwaters of a worldclass salmon fishery in southwest Alaska.
As part of a court settlement with the Pebble Limited Partnership, the EPA agreed to begin the process of withdrawing proposed restrictions on development in the Bristol Bay region, an area that produces about half of the world’s sockeye salmon.
The agreement, signed Thursday but released on Friday, comes four months into the Trump administration, which supporters of the proposed Pebble Mine hoped would give it a fairer shake than they believed they received under President Barack Obama.
The mining industry has seen promising signs from the administration, including a willingness to take a different look at projects and to review regulations seen as overly burdensome, said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association.
“I think the public is in no danger of seeing genuine environmental protection diminished,” he said. “We’re simply asking for a more efficient process.”
Environmental groups see the Pebble agreement as potentially giving a goahead to industry to challenge EPA actions or to seek permits about which they previously might have been uncertain.
“It obviously sends a psychological message to big mining companies that if they were nervous about getting permits in the past … that this is their golden opportunity to get their mine through the process,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.
Critics of the Pebble settlement called it a backdoor deal and a slap in the face to residents of the region who petitioned the EPA in hopes of securing environmental protections. The proposed mine has been hotly debated for years.