August 1, 2019 — The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will withdraw protections implemented by in 2014 under the Clean Water Act that could have posed a hurdle to the proposed Pebble Mine development, which many salmon harvesters say threatens Alaska’s Bristol Bay fishery.
The EPA said in a July 30 statement that it will withdraw section Clean Water Act 404(c) provisions that would have restricted the use of “certain waters in the South Fork Koktuli River, North Fork Koktuli River, and Upper Talarik Creek watersheds in southwest Alaska as disposal sites for dredged or fill material”.
Under the administration of president Barack Obama, the EPA implemented the provisions in 2014. Three years later after the election of president Donald Trump, the agency’s then-head, Scott Pruitt, began the process to withdraw the protections. However, following an investigative report from CNN that claimed that Pruitt made the decision to withdraw the protections only an hour after meeting with the CEO of mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership, Tom Collier, Pruitt stopped the withdrawal process.