July 9, 2019 โ If you thought the administration of newly elected Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy would use the US Army Corps of Engineersโ (USACE) invitation for comments on its draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Pebble Mine to offer up an unconditional love letter on behalf of the massive copper, gold and molybdenum open pit mine in Bristol Bay, think again.
The stateโs Office of Project Management and Permitting (OPMP) instead coordinated with seven state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources, to submit a tedious 96-page to-do list for the federal agency to satisfy. OPMPโs cover letter offers no opinions about whether the project, which commercial harvesters and others fear will imperil the worldโs largest sockeye salmon population, is a positive or negative development.
The letter requests details, for example, about pipeline trenching plans and soil erosion, as well as the contents of drilling muds, the likelihood of turbidity in streams and the potential impact on the lodging industry. It asks for the possible effects on fish from a concentrated spill of metal-laden sediment.
โAlthough much of the information the state has provided the USACE previously has been incorporated into the DEIS, further work is necessary to ensure potential effects to the human environment from each alternative are adequately evaluated and described in the [final environmental impact statement],โ the letter, signed by Kyle Moselle, OPMPโs associate director, wrote.