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Battle over Pebble Mine shifts to EPA
Tribal leaders who are battling plans for Pebble Mine, a $300-billion copper, molybdemum and gold deposit at the headwaters of Bristol Bay--home of the world's biggest sockeye salmon runs--are appealing now to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for help.
But already, Alaska's only congressman is hoping to block that exit.
Though the mine under study by the Pebble Ltd. Partnership lies on state lands--and Alaska has always been eager to promote natural resource development--opponents are hoping to persuade the EPA to exercise its veto power under the federal Clean Water Act.
In talks with EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during her visit to Alaska last week, native tribal members who depend on the healthy salmon stocks at Bristol Bay urged the EPA to invoke Section 404(c) of the act, which authorizes the agency to prohibit or restrict the discharge of dredge or fill material, such as metallic sulfide mine wastes, into waterways when there will be an "unacceptable adverse impact" on fisheries, wildlife, municipal water supplies or recreational areas.