Today in Bristol Bay, Alaska, fishermen are pulling some of the season\u2019s last wild sockeye salmon from the bay. Also today, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is publishing a document with major implications for those salmon and the people who depend on them. That document, two years in the making, is the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Pebble Mine, a proposed copper and gold mine set to be built among the tributaries that drain into Bristol Bay and its US $1.5-billion sockeye fishery.<\/p>\n
Just a week ago, the Trump administration finalized<\/a> a sweeping overhaul of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the 50-year-old bedrock environmental law that mandates environmental reviews and public input for major projects like the Pebble Mine. The goal was to streamline the process, and it did so by limiting the depth and scope of environmental reviews; limiting the participation of tribes, the public, and other agencies; and by making it more difficult and potentially more expensive for the public to appeal a decision, according to Erin Whalen, an attorney with nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice.<\/p>\n Critics of the Pebble Mine\u2019s relatively short environmental review process have been quick to draw parallels between the new NEPA rules and what they say they experienced engaging with USACE even before the law\u2019s overhaul.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Bristol Bay is the poster child for the Trump administration gutting the NEPA process. The truncated timeline, two and a half years, is literally a fraction of the usual time frame that this type of analysis takes,\u201d says Alannah Hurley, a Yup\u2019ik woman who grew up in Bristol Bay. By comparison, the environmental review for another gold mine in southwest Alaska, Donlin Gold, took six years.<\/p>\n Hurley is the executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of 15 tribal governments representing 80 percent of the region\u2019s residents, most of whom still practice subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering. \u201cFor us this is a human rights issue, this is an Indigenous rights issue,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, from a tribal perspective, the NEPA process wasn’t that great to begin with,\u201d says Hurley. \u201cSo for it to now be even worse, and harder for the public and tribal governments to engage in that process to ensure that impacts to their communities are considered, is astounding. It’s infuriating.\u201d<\/p>\n The new NEPA rules are expected to face legal challenges and will likely not apply directly to the Pebble proposal. But the open pit mine\u2019s accelerated assessment may serve as a preview of what this new streamlined process could look like for future mines, oil pipelines, and highways, says Brian Litmans, legal director for Trustees for Alaska, an Alaska-focused nonprofit environmental law firm.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Pebble [Mine] can be used as a precursor of things to come,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Under the new NEPA rules, the government has set a goal of two years for completing environmental reviews, though it allows for exceptions. That\u2019s two and a half years shorter than the federal average and sharply compresses the timeline for gathering and analyzing data; preparing each version of the EIS; and hearing and incorporating feedback from the public, tribal governments, and agencies like the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That also, theoretically, puts new pressure on developers to come to the process better prepared with baseline data and project details, a lack of which can cause delays.<\/p>\n Many of the changes to NEPA go well beyond anything seen in the Pebble Mine review, says Whalen, including eliminating requirements to analyze a project\u2019s long-term cumulative impacts, such as its contributions to climate change.<\/p>\n Litmans says that though USACE was under no legal pressure to move the Pebble Mine through the NEPA process as quickly as it has, the agency\u2019s aggressive timeline helped lead to a \u201cfaulty, lacking analysis\u201d and restricted opportunities for other agencies and the public to weigh in.<\/p>\n In March, for example, the Curyung Tribal Council told USACE that \u201c45 days was not sufficient time to review and provide meaningful feedback\u201d on an earlier version of the Pebble Mine\u2019s EIS, citing the breadth of the changes<\/a> and the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n For the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP), the firm developing the Pebble Mine, a faster NEPA process, even without the new rules, has sped it toward the possibility of securing permission under the Clean Water Act, which in turn would pave the way for other permits and eventually breaking ground.<\/p>\n With the final EIS released today, a decision on a Clean Water Act permit is at least 30 days away. USACE says PLP has not yet submitted a final mitigation plan for offsetting the mine\u2019s impacts. And the public will not be able to comment on the final EIS or mitigation plan when it arrives.<\/p>\n On July 15, PLP CEO Tom Collier praised work by the army corps, calling special attention to the permitting timeline, saying in a statement: \u201cThroughout this review process, the USACE has closely tracked their timeline and public projections for process milestones.\u201d<\/p>\n For Collier, a lot of money is on the line should USACE green-light the project this year. According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Collier will personally receive a $12.5-million bonus if the corps approves a federal permit for the mine within four years. Since 2007, PLP has spent more than $15-million lobbying the federal government, dropping over half that amount during President Trump\u2019s tenure, according to US Senate lobbying reports compiled by advocacy group Cook Inletkeeper<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today in Bristol Bay, Alaska, fishermen are pulling some of the season\u2019s last wild sockeye salmon from the bay. Also today, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is publishing a document with major implications for those salmon and the <\/p>\n