The Environmental Protection Agency is continuing its push to block the potential Pebble copper and gold mine.
EPA Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran said in a formal statement July 18 that the agency is moving to protect the robust salmon stocks of Bristol Bay from the possible impacts of a large mine in the region.
The 214-page proposed determination document calls for a ban of large-scale mining in the area of the Koktuli River and Upper Talarik Creek watersheds north and west of Iliamna, where the Pebble deposit is located. The watersheds are part of the larger Kvichak River and Nushagak River watersheds — the Pebble deposit sits nearly on the border of the two — which support some of the largest returns of sockeye salmon in the world each year.
“The science is clear that mining the Pebble deposit would cause irreversible damage to one of the world’s last intact salmon ecosystems. Bristol Bay’s exceptional fisheries deserve exceptional protection,” McLerran said. “We are doing this now because we’ve heard from concerned tribes, the fishing industry, Alaskans and many others who have lived and worked for more than a decade under the uncertainty posed by this potentially destructive mine.”
If developed, it is believed the Pebble mine would be one of the world’s largest surface copper and gold mines. Alaska U.S. Rep. Don Young called the determination a “jurisdictional power grab.”
During a July 16 House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on legislation to limit the EPA’s Clean Water Act authority, Young delivered a heated monologue in which he condemned the agency’s actions and called the Obama administration a “monarchy.”
He said he didn’t know if Pebble should be developed, but that the EPA is symptomatic of a federal government that is squelching states’ rights.
“I’m one member in this Congress and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and watch somebody from Maryland or any other state start telling me or anybody in Alaska how we should be running our state by veto from an agency,” Young said.
House Bill 4854, the Regulatory Certainty Act of 2014, would limit the EPA’s ability to veto a project under the Clean Water Act to the time when a wetlands permit application is being reviewed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The proposed Bristol Bay action would be illegal under the bill, as would the repealing of approved permits.
The bill was approved in committee and can now receive a vote of the full House, although the legislation has no chance of receiving a vote in the Senate.
Murkowski co-sponsored a Senate version of a similar bill, the Regulatory Fairness Act.
The EPA’s most-recent use of its Section 404(c) authority came in October 2009 after the Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the Spruce No. 1 surface coal mine in West Virginia in September of that year. The agency ultimately issued its final determination in January 2011 and revoked the fill permit for the coalmine.
The EPA has justified its proposed action under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act, which gives the agency the authority to block the placement of fill material in any area that it determines would have an adverse impact on fish or wildlife.
Pebble Limited Partnership has not submitted a formal mine plan and has yet to apply for a Section 404 wetlands permit issued by the regional U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For those reasons the Pebble Partnership is accusing the EPA of overstepping its regulatory authority.
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