WASHINGTON – The Army Corps of Engineers will make new demands to mitigate environmental damage caused by a large proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska, potentially delaying approvals for the project outside of the presidential election, three people said familiar with the Corps’ plans on Saturday .
The Corps is expected to send a letter Monday to the developers of the Pebble Mine project, these people said, adding that it will not issue a permit until the company presents plans to protect an area in the surrounding watershed, a critical breeding ground for salmon, equal in size to the area that would damage the mines.
That requirement could significantly delay a project that was direction approved until it created the opposition of President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and also of former Mike Pence’s former mayor, Nick Ayers. If Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, appears in November, the project will likely die.
“The mine will be killed nearby,” said Whit Fosburgh, president of Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has personally reassured Pebble Mine officials that the move will not shake the project, according to another person familiar with the matter.
The proposed Pebble Mine, at a distance of about 200 miles from Anchorage, would be one of the largest open pit mines in the world and could potentially produce hundreds of billions of dollars worth of metals. But it would be digging near independent spawning streams that support subsistence fishing by some Alaska Natives, a large sport fishing industry and one of the largest commercial wild salmon fisheries in the world, near Bristol Bay.
Blocked by the Obama administration, but brought back under President Trump, the project was the subject of an environmental review by the Corps of Engineers, which last month issued a final report and a final decision on permission promised, by law, at least 30 days must arrive later. The report found that the project would not lead to “long-term changes in the health of commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay.”
But since the final review was published, the president’s eldest son and some high-profile Republican donors have joined environmentalists and some Alaska Natives in opposition.
Tom Collier, the project’s chief executive, said he knew for weeks that the corps would send a letter in search of the new plans.
“We are working out the details of a mitigation plan,” said Mr. Collier, adding that he was “95 percent confident” that the election process would not be delayed.
The move to demand reduction near the mining website is a change from what the Corps was looking for earlier, Collier said. The company had previously proposed providing drainage facilities and other infrastructure for some of the Native villages in the area, miles from the mine.
Mr Collier said he believed the White House would not intervene.
“This is a president who, during his campaign and his first term, made the promise that he would not allow Obama – type political interference,” he said. “I just don’t see this president doing it.”
Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, an organization that supports the use of fossil fuels, said: “There seems to be a last-minute organized pressure to persuade Trump to put the brakes on to put mine. He would have to resist. ”
He added, “It’s a small subset of rich hunter species.”
One of those ‘hunter types’ is the president’s son, however.
Chris Wood, the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited, an anti-mine conservation group, said: “There’s a reason there’s a break so the president as his designer has a chance to intervene. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary here.”
Meanwhile, Mr Wood said, “a crescendo of votes” was emerging to oppose the project.
This month, the younger Mr. Trump, who fishes in the Bristol Bay region, sent out a Twitter post from Mr. Ayers asking the president to stop the project, adding, “The headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fisheries are too unique and fragile to take any chances.”
Since then, others who have faithfully influenced the president have weighed in on the project, including Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson and Johnny Morris, the executive director of Bass Pro Shops.
