Northern Dynasty: Pebble Partnership Served with Grand Jury Subpoena in Alaska theusnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theusnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Reuters Staff
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Feb 5 (Reuters) - Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd said on Friday that its wholly-owned Pebble Limited Partnership and the unit’s former chief executive officer had been served with subpoenas.
The subpoenas to produce documents is related to a grand jury investigation apparently involving recordings of private conversations regarding the Pebble mine project.
Tom Collier, CEO of Pebble Limited Partnership, the company trying to develop Alaska’s Pebble Mine project, had resigned in September after his comments on elected and regulatory officials in the U.S. state were covertly videotaped and released by an environmental activist group.
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Robin Samuelsen still recalls his first meeting about the prospective Pebble Mine. It was around 2005 or 2006, in Dillingham, Alaska. Listening to an early plan for developing a copper and gold mine in the spawning grounds of Bristol Bay’s abundant salmon, this Curyung tribal chief and commercial fisherman quickly made up his mind. “You’ll kill off our salmon,” Samuelsen remembers saying, adding: “I’ll be up there to stop you.”
More than 15 years later, in November 2020, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) denied the Pebble Mine a key permit, a sharp setback for the mine though not the first. Already, the mine’s developer, Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP), has filed an appeal challenging that decision. PLP was joined by the State of Alaska, which, in an unusual move, filed its own appeal. Both appeals are currently under review.
While Alaskans are looking ahead to a bright future for Bristol Bay, Gov. Mike Dunleavy continues to look backward and is seeking to keep the proposed Pebble mine project alive through dubious legal tactics. The latest example of this is the state s appeal of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to deny a key Clean Water Act permit for the project. The appeal is wrong on the law. It is wrong on science. And it is wrong for Alaskans.
Let us start with the legal arguments. The applicable regulations specify that only the party denied a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit can file an administrative appeal of that decision. Corps of Engineers guidance on the appeal process is equally specific, the process provides permit applicants with an opportunity to seek a timely and objective reconsideration of an adverse permit decision, and there is no third-party involvement in the appeal process itself. This is black and white. Moreover, the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP), the
Governor’s Pebble appeal ignores the law, science and voices of Alaskans Author: Jason Metrokin Published February 1
FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2020, file photo, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, center, delivers his State of the State speech to a Joint Session of the Alaska Legislature as then Senate President Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, left, and then Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham listen. (AP Photo/Michael Penn, File)
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Print article While Alaskans are looking ahead to a bright future for Bristol Bay, Gov. Mike Dunleavy continues to look backward and is seeking to keep the proposed Pebble Mine project alive through dubious legal tactics. The latest example of this is the state’s appeal of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to deny a key Clean Water Act permit for the project. The appeal is wrong on the law. It is wrong on science. And it is wrong for Alaskans.