EPA Studies and Preordained Conclusions

With great fanfare the Environmental Protection Agency announced January that their “assessment” of potential mining impacts on salmon ecosystems of Bristol Bay, Alaska had discovered unacceptable risks to salmon and their habitat (various drainages in the region). The agency stated that they would be proceeding to take action under the Clean Water Act to pre-emptively halt action on the Pebble Mine project before permitting begins on the proposed copper, gold, and molybdenum extraction project. Essentially, they studied three mine scenarios, none of which would be able to be permitted under either the state of federal systems and found them unacceptable. No surprise, that.

The study was greeted with great joy and celebration by the anti-mining groups. It was not so well received by the rest of us here in Alaska, as it marks yet another encroachment of federal oversight into a mining district on state lands that was designated as a mining district decades ago.

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R, AK) and Representative Don Young (R, AK) blasted the assessment and the process. Mark Begich (D, AK) embraced the study, pronounced it sound science, and said he now publicly opposes the mine. Begich is up for reelection in November.

When the EPA announced the assessment process in 2011, they couched it in terms of addressing local concern about the project, which they as the Rightful Stewards of the Environment simply couldn’t ignore. As it turns out, that was all a big lie. The results were pre-ordained and anti-mining groups were working closely with the EPA well before the assessment process was announced.

Now, this is not at all surprising, given the revolving door between members of this regime and environmental groups. What is surprising is that they have gotten sufficiently careless and arrogant that resource development people here in Alaska have copies of some of the relevant e-mails.

Read more from this story HERE.