riceme? Fight heats up over EPA sabotage of Alaska gold mine

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/25/fight-heats-up-over-epa-sabotage-alaska-gold-mine/

The Environmental Protection Agency is under fire for a preemptive strike against a massive copper and gold mine in Alaska, where hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are at stake.

The controversy centers on Pebble Mine, located 200 miles southeast of Anchorage. It is the largest deposit of copper and gold in North America.

But environmental groups and fishermen, worried about the impact to the world’s most abundant salmon run in Bristol Bay, fought the mine from the beginning.

“It was people from Alaska that requested the EPA come in and take action,” said Tim Bristol, of Trout Unlimited in Anchorage. “We just don’t feel like we’re getting our concerns heard by the state of Alaska.”

The EPA did act, using the 1972 Clean Water Act for the first time ever to stop a mine before the owners even came out with a detailed plan.

The company behind the mine claims the agency went too far.

“The intent of the EPA is to take on an authority that nowhere has Congress given them, to go across America and determine where development should occur and where it shouldn’t occur before anyone ever files a permit,” Pebble Limited Partnership CEO Tom Collier said.

Have you heard anything about this up there?

This is the first I have heard about the sabotage accusations but yes, I know about Pebble. I was surprised to hear the clip from Don Young at the end because I thought that he (along with 99.9% of all other Alaskans) also opposed Pebble. I think his objection to the what the EPA did is that a federal agency came into the state of Alaska and that they did it before the permitting process started, not the end result.

Even miners don't want the Pebble mine to go in. They are fishermen and Salmon habitat is very fragile... it would effect the salmon runs all the way up to us and beyond, no doubt. I hope that if they do find that the EPA was out of line, somehow some way, it is stopped.

Well then it seems justified to a certain point. However they should follow procedures.

Ive read a little bit about the clean water act back when they were harassing those people who wanted a pond on their property. The act is so broad it pretty much allows them to pick and choose who they want to harass.

I agree that they should follow procedure but in this case I doubt that there was any ill intent, and I do not know that there is any precident.

It could have done that proposed mine's owners a favor.  With the EPA coming out against it so early, they might decide to not waste any more money on the proposal.

Can you imagine the hoops the owners will have to jump through to get that mine approved?  And the precautions they'd have to make to prevent a drop of tainted water from entering that watershed?  It may not be cost effective.

Eric wrote:

It could have done that proposed mine's owners a favor.  With the EPA coming out against it so early, they might decide to not waste any more money on the proposal.

Can you imagine the hoops the owners will have to jump through to get that mine approved?  And the precautions they'd have to make to prevent a drop of tainted water from entering that watershed?  It may not be cost effective.

I see what you mean and agree, but I doubt Pebble (aka Dynasty) sees it that way. Here's the EPA data if anyone cares to read it:

http://www2.epa.gov/bristolbay/proposed-determination-pursuant-section-404c-clean-water-act-pebble-deposit-area

This is a direct quote from page 2:

Quote :

In February 2011, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (NDM) formally submitted information to the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that put forth plans for the development of a large-scale
mine at the headwaters of this pristine ecosystem (Figure ES-2). Their proposal outlines several stages
of mine development, the smallest being a 2.0-billion-ton mine1 and the largest being a 6.5-billion-ton
mine2 (Ghaffari et al. 2011, SEC 2011), both of which are larger than 90% of the known ore deposits of
this type in the world (EPA 2014: Chapter 4).

Sounds to me like their intent was pretty f*cking clear. Not sure what everyone is bitching about.