Pebble Copper/Molybdenum/Gold/Silver Mine Permit Denied

The mining application for the Pebble copper/molybdenum/gold/silver mine was rejected recently. Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. announces that, its 100%-owned, US-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership received formal notification from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) that its application for permits under the Clean Water Act and other federal statutes has been denied. The lead federal regulator found Pebble's compensatory mitigation plan as submitted earlier this month to be non-compliant, and that the project is not in the public interest.

Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. is a mineral exploration and development company based in Vancouver, Canada. Northern Dynasty's principal asset, owned through its wholly owned Alaska-based U.S. subsidiary, Pebble Limited Partnership, is a 100% interest in a contiguous block of 2,402 mineral claims in southwest Alaska, including the Pebble deposit. PLP is the proponent of the Pebble Project, an initiative to develop one of the world's most important mineral resources.

Northern Dynasty called the decision politically motivated and said it is fundamentally unsupported by the administrative record as developed by the USACE through the Environmental Impact Statement process for the Pebble Project. The Company intends to launch an administrative appeal of the USACE permitting decision.

The Pebble Mine would produce 70 million tons of gold, molybdenum and copper ore a year and create a pit 600 meters deep in Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed. Shares in Canadian parent company Northern Dynasty Minerals had earlier lost about 50% of their value.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected the Pebble Mine - the widely condemned gold and copper mine proposed at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska. The Pebble copper/molybdenum/gold/silver mine would have threatened the world's greatest wild salmon fishery that generates $1.5 billion in annual revenue and 14,000 jobs. Salmon have sustained the subsistence culture of Alaska Natives for millennia.

In a statement, the Army Corps "determined that the applicant's plan for the discharge of fill material does not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines and concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest.”

The Washington Post quoted Colonel Damon Delarosa as saying that the company's proposed project plan did not describe how to dispose of waste rock and waste.

Pebble would fully co-exist with clean water, healthy fish and wildlife populations, and the important fisheries resources of southwest Alaska. Pebble would make an important, positive socioeconomic contribution to the people and villages of Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Pebble copper-molybdenum-gold-silver is the largest undeveloped copper-gold mine in North America. At present, the mine's proven and estimated ore resources are 6.5 billion tons, containing 57 billion pounds of copper (about 26 million tons), 71 million ounces (2200 tons) of gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum (1.5 million tons), and 345 million silver. Ounces (10730 tons). The Pebble copper/molybdenum/gold/silver mine project permit application has been controversial and has been shelved.

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