US Army Corps Of Engineers Assigns Review Officer To Pebble Administrative Appeal

VANCOUVER - Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. reported that the Pebble Limited Partnership has been advised by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) that a new Review Officer (RO) has been assigned to its appeal of the federal agency's issuance of a negative Record of Decision (ROD) for Alaska's Pebble Project.

The Pebble Partnership submitted a Request for Appeal (RFA) of the federal permitting decision in January 2021, which was accepted by the USACE's Pacific Ocean Division Engineer in Hawaii as complete and meeting the criteria for appeal, in February 2021. Although USACE guidelines indicate the administrative appeal process should conclude within 90 days, it can also be extended under certain circumstances.

The Pebble Partnership has been advised that the administrative appeal process for Pebble is likely to take a year or more given the complexity of the case and the scope of the administrative record, which contains ~200,000 documents. Northern Dynasty reported on June 1, 2021 that the USACE had completed the administrative record and that it is under review by Pebble Partnership's legal team.

Northern Dynasty also reported in June 2021 that the USACE would be naming a new RO to lead the Pebble appeal, as the previous RO had been promoted out of the position. The new RO is expected to set a detailed timeline for the administrative appeal process, including scheduling a potential site visit and appeal conference, in the weeks ahead.

"We have been, and continue to be, very concerned about the USACE's schedule and timeline for advancing our administrative appeal of the Pebble permitting decision, as we believe this does not accord with regulation," said Ron Thiessen, Northern Dynasty President and CEO. "The new RO has the power to help set the U.S. down the path of strategic metals independence, which could enable the U.S. to produce the copper, gold and silver it needs for a successful green economy transition. They can also help ensure that these metals are mined using industry-leading technologies under some of the strictest environmental standards in the world, while helping Alaska realize its right to manage its own resources for the benefit of its population."

The USACE Alaska District published a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed copper gold-molybdenum-silver-rhenium mine in July 2020, finding that Pebble would "not have measurable effects" on fish populations or fisheries in southwest Alaska. Despite this, the USACE published a ROD in November 2020 denying Pebble a key permit under the U.S. Clean Water Act on the grounds that its ‘compensatory mitigation plan' (CMP) is non-compliant and the project is not in the ‘public interest.'

Northern Dynasty believes that key aspects of the USACE's ROD and permitting decision - including its ‘significant degradation' finding, its ‘public interest review' findings and its perfunctory rejection of Pebble's CMP - are contrary to law, unprecedented in Alaska and fundamentally unsupported by the administrative record, including the Pebble Project EIS.