What’s considered to be the most important document of the permitting project, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, for the proposed Pebble mine was released last week. In it, the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) fails to consider many pertinent issues and potential impacts from the project, largely ignores the established science regarding the mine, and overlooks many pertinent concerns with Pebble’s proposal.

If you’ve followed along with us, you know that science says a mine of the size, scale, and location of Pebble’s proposal, even in the smallest iteration considered, would threaten the fisheries of Bristol Bay.

The Pebble 12% Build is the most recent mine proposal presently being evaluated by the US Army Corps of Engineers in an Environmental Impact Statement.[1] The proposed mine would mine only 12% of the identified mineral resource over the 20-year life of the mine. The smaller, ‘environmentally friendly’ mine proposed by the Pebble Limited Partnership would put all of the acid-generating waste back into the open pit to minimize post-closure water treatment requirements, but perpetual water treatment would still be required.

Why are we always talking about Bristol Bay when Pebble is proposed over 100 miles away?