A thread for those interested in permitting mining projects in USA. The $NAK Pebble Mine is a fascinating case study.

My takeaway is that despite USA's extraordinarily costly requirements to gather scientific data to generate voluminous technical reports the ultimate permitting outcome can be just as arbitrary and capricious as in any shitbox jurisdiction.

In this case it came down to the government's public interest determination. Have a look at this concluding page. The language used by the Army Corp of Engineers here subtly reflects an epic victory of the opposition movement lobby against this project.

On benefits: "Although some economic benefits may accrue to local populations, these speculative benefits would be primarily received by the private applicant (PLP, parent company Northern Dynasty) and shareholders and are limited in duration to the operative time of the mine."

Here the govt makes no effort to tabulate economic benefits, despite these having been estimated by the company and third parties. The govt are downright derogatory calling benefits "speculative" and that they would be "primarily received" by the company, without evidence.

And then this: "Detrimental impacts include permanent loss of all fish and wildlife habitat within the 13.1 square mile mine footprint to include the permanent loss of 2,051 acres of pristine wetlands, 99.7 river miles of stream..."

The phrases "permanent loss" of "pristine wetlands" are hardly the prose of an objective regulator. These phrases are actually verbatim phrases copied from recent environmental NGOs documentation/propaganda. Seriously, this is a smoking gun with prints. http://www.utbb.org/blog/2020/7/27/final-eis-is-fatally-flawed-pebble-still-too-risky-for-bristol-bay

In the end the US govt set all the costly science aside and made a political decision in favor of the opponents. The moral of the story is that hearts and minds matter, if you lose them you can't rely on law or process. Not here, not anywhere.