Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Ownership of Pebble Partnership Back in Hands of Northern Dynasty

The president and chief executive officer of Northern Dynasty Minerals, Ltd., in Vancouver, British Columbia, announced this past week that his company has acquired Anglo American (US) Pebble LLC’s interest in the Pebble Limited Partnership, based in Anchorage.

Ronald Thiessen said all members of Anglo American, the London-based international mining concern, have resigned from the Pebble Partnership board.

Northern Dynasty has maintained that the mine can be developed an operated in a responsible manner in harmony with the fisheries of Southwest Alaska, in particular the Bristol Bay watershed salmon.
Opponents of the mine have challenged that assessment, and the US Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of finalizing its report on how a mine of that size would potentially affect fisheries in the area of the Bristol Bay watershed.

The most recent comments about the Bristol Bay draft watershed assessment are online at http://www2.epa.gov/bristolbay

According to the draft report, the affects would include the loss of up to 90 miles of streams, altered stream flow due to retention and discharge of water used in the mine operations and loss of up to 4,800 acres of wetlands.


Thiessen said his company’s current focus is to consolidate all the technical data, engineering work and permitting documentation related to Pebble, with the goal of qualifying and securing a new partner in 2014. He said that a final decision on permit filing would be made in the coming year by Northern Dynasty’s board of directors. Northern Dynasty meanwhile has launched a new website to present its stand on the project, at www.northerndynastyminerals.com