Pebble Mine preliminary FEIS is a capstone to a corrupt, scientifically inadequate process

SalmonState stands by the United Tribes of Bristol Bay’s assessment that when it comes to the proposed Pebble Mine, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to disregard the scathing feedback it has received from scientists and scientific agencies, as well as the clear directives to address the shortcomings in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project from lawmakers such as Senator Lisa Murkowski. The Corps released its preliminary Final Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed mine to Cooperating Agencies and Tribes yesterday, shortly after meetings at which Cooperating Agencies continued to raise grave concerns with the Corps about the proposed project’s impacts. 

“The permitting process for the proposed Pebble Mine is a corrupt, rushed, scientifically inadequate failure that has ignored more than a decade of input from scientists, Tribes, and fishermen, and this joke of a preliminary Final Environmental Impact Statement drives that home,” said SalmonState Executive Director Tim Bristol. “Now is the time for Senator Lisa Murkowski and the rest of Congress to put an end, once and for all, to the backdoor manipulations of a failing foreign company plotting a massive open pit, an industrial corridor, and toxic storage at the headwaters of the largest and most pristine remaining sockeye salmon run in the world.”