To: Army Corps of Engineers
Tell the Army Corps: Reject Pebble Mine!
Dear Army Corps of Engineers,
Protecting Bristol Bay should be of utmost importance to the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps should protect Bristol Bay, its world-class fisheries and indigenous communities, by considering the following during permitting and ultimately rejecting mining in Bristol Bay:
This application is incomplete. The Army Corps should not issue a Draft Environmental Impact Statement without more information from the Pebble Partnership. There is no baseline information for significant parts of Pebble’s proposal, including the proposed transportation corridor, port or use of Lake Iliamna. Any baseline data Pebble has supplied is more than 10 years old and is not a reasonable basis on which to analyze project impacts. The Pebble Partnership should also provide an independently prepared economic feasibility analysis. This is routinely done for other mines like Donlin and without it, the Corps could be analyzing and the public could be commenting on a hypothetical mine. To proceed with the NEPA process under these conditions is a waste of government resources and of the people’s time.
The Environmental Protection Agency found that a mine smaller than what Pebble is currently proposing would pose “significant and irreversible harm” to Bristol Bay’s waters and would result in “a complete loss of fish habitat.” Pebble’s current plans will permanently destroy 4,000 acres of wetlands and more than 5 miles of anadromous streams, levels that exceed EPA’s proposed restrictions on the mine. The Army Corps must compare Pebble’s plans to the EPA’s analysis before moving forward with permitting.
The Army Corps must look at a range of alternatives beyond Pebble’s mine site and include alternatives for mining copper and gold somewhere other than Bristol Bay.
The Army Corps should use a realistic scope of Pebble Mine to assess its impacts. Pebble asks the Corps to limit the review to an unreasonably small 20-year mine that likely is not economic, while it touts to potential investors that the mine can operate for 200 years and have 11 billion tons of ore. The Army Corps must look at the full extent of mining the Pebble deposit, and not ask the public to participate in a process that is founded on a permit application that is missing such basic components.
Please stand with the Bristol Bay communities and abundant wildlife. Please reject Pebble’s permit application as incomplete, lacking environmental and economic baseline data, and lacking the information needed for government agencies to assess the massive amount of impacts that Pebble is proposing.
Thank you,
Protecting Bristol Bay should be of utmost importance to the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps should protect Bristol Bay, its world-class fisheries and indigenous communities, by considering the following during permitting and ultimately rejecting mining in Bristol Bay:
This application is incomplete. The Army Corps should not issue a Draft Environmental Impact Statement without more information from the Pebble Partnership. There is no baseline information for significant parts of Pebble’s proposal, including the proposed transportation corridor, port or use of Lake Iliamna. Any baseline data Pebble has supplied is more than 10 years old and is not a reasonable basis on which to analyze project impacts. The Pebble Partnership should also provide an independently prepared economic feasibility analysis. This is routinely done for other mines like Donlin and without it, the Corps could be analyzing and the public could be commenting on a hypothetical mine. To proceed with the NEPA process under these conditions is a waste of government resources and of the people’s time.
The Environmental Protection Agency found that a mine smaller than what Pebble is currently proposing would pose “significant and irreversible harm” to Bristol Bay’s waters and would result in “a complete loss of fish habitat.” Pebble’s current plans will permanently destroy 4,000 acres of wetlands and more than 5 miles of anadromous streams, levels that exceed EPA’s proposed restrictions on the mine. The Army Corps must compare Pebble’s plans to the EPA’s analysis before moving forward with permitting.
The Army Corps must look at a range of alternatives beyond Pebble’s mine site and include alternatives for mining copper and gold somewhere other than Bristol Bay.
The Army Corps should use a realistic scope of Pebble Mine to assess its impacts. Pebble asks the Corps to limit the review to an unreasonably small 20-year mine that likely is not economic, while it touts to potential investors that the mine can operate for 200 years and have 11 billion tons of ore. The Army Corps must look at the full extent of mining the Pebble deposit, and not ask the public to participate in a process that is founded on a permit application that is missing such basic components.
Please stand with the Bristol Bay communities and abundant wildlife. Please reject Pebble’s permit application as incomplete, lacking environmental and economic baseline data, and lacking the information needed for government agencies to assess the massive amount of impacts that Pebble is proposing.
Thank you,
Why is this important?
Pebble Mine would be disastrous for both Bristol Bay and the communities its waters support. The mine would pollute the water and air and could even wipe out the wild salmon population that is central to the local economy.
But instead of considering those impacts fully, the Army Corps is trying to rush through the permitting process. We can’t let that happen.
But instead of considering those impacts fully, the Army Corps is trying to rush through the permitting process. We can’t let that happen.