Senior USACE Official Confirms Issue Following Flurry of Inaccurate Stories
August 31, 2020 Vancouver – Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (TSX: NDM; NYSE American: NAK) ("Northern Dynasty" or the "Company") reports that its 100%-owned US-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership (“Pebble Partnership” or “PLP”) issued the following public statement on August 28, 2020:
A Washington Examiner story, published today, confirmed what the Pebble Partnership has been expressing for nearly a week – that the policy position of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“USACE”) regarding mitigation and the path to a Record of Decision (“ROD”) for Pebble is outlined in the letter dated August 20th, 2020 addressed to the Company. The Washington Examiner reports today that Ryan Fisher, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, one of the senior leaders responsible for the USACE, clarified that the Alaska District letter is the “guiding policy” for the federal review for Pebble and “not a press release from the Army that used stronger language against the project or other political noise in opposition to it”.
“We have confirmation of what we have known for some time – the policy position regarding Pebble comes directly from the Alaska District and it is exactly what we have been telling the media and other stakeholders all week. There is a path forward for Pebble and we are working our way along it. Another way to look at this is that we were working before the Monday letter and we are continuing our work today. And, so is the USACE project team,” said Collier. “We understood that the letter on wetlands mitigation was the operating document for the next steps in the process, but we're glad that a senior department official has clarified for others who don't understand the permitting process nor have read the actual EIS."
Many news media outlets incorrectly reported that the Trump Administration had stopped or was going to stop the project. Much of the speculation came from misreading the intent of a USACE letter regarding the mitigation requirements the agency had set for the Pebble Project. Nothing in the letter was new to the Pebble team as the company has been in discussions with the USACE about mitigation since the announcement of the draft Least Environmentally Damaging Practicable Alternative (“LEDPA”) for the project. A press release from the Army Public Affairs office said that the USACE “finds that the project as currently proposed cannot be permitted” and several news stories have interpreted this to mean the project is finished. Collier said this is simply incorrect.
“Quite frankly it has been astonishing to watch how quickly the news media and others irresponsibly jumped on the bandwagon to report that the project had been stopped – even when we repeatedly told them it has not. We had been anticipating the USACE letter for some time and told this to many who frankly did not care to believe our position. At least we now have solid confirmation about the policy position of the USACE as the week draws to a close. Perhaps now we can get back to focusing on our core work and that is to finalize the mitigation plan for the project,” said Collier.
The Pebble team remains at work to finalize a mitigation plan – something the company has been working on for the last couple of months. Collier noted that once the company had clarity that the USACE had changed direction about its approach to wetlands mitigation to seek in-kind mitigation, the project team began working on a plan that would meet the USACE requirements. Pebble has had crews in the field finalizing wetlands survey work in the Koktuli watershed for several weeks and anticipates finishing the field work by early September. Collier further noted that reports stating the project could not achieve mitigation are equally incorrect.
“It is my hope that we can now get back to reporting about the facts when it comes to Pebble. We will provide the necessary mitigation and in fact we are well down the road to doing so. The final Environmental Impact Statement says Pebble development won’t damage the fishery in Bristol Bay. Thus, we see no scientific or regulatory reason why we should not have a positive record of decision on the project,” said Collier.
A number of other articles were published late last week regarding this topic:
OpEd in The Hill by Alaska Governor Dunleavy
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/514114-let-alaska-use-its-natural-resources
Blog post in the American Thinker by Sandy Szwarc https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/trump_should_allow_resource_development_in_alaskas_pebble_mine.html
Article in North of 60 Mining News by Shane Lasley https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/story/2020/08/28/news/pebble-mine-death-grossly-exaggerated/6415.html

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