Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX: NDM; NYSE: NAK) its unit, Pebble Partnership, was preparing an appeal after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a key water permit for the proposed Alaska mine.
The company鈥檚 shares cratered nearly 50% last week after its US-based subsidiary received formal notification that its application for permits under the Clean Water Act and other federal statutes聽was denied.
The negative Record of Decision (RoD) issued by the lead federal regulator for Alaska鈥檚 Pebble project on November 25, denied the copper-gold-molybdenum-silver-rhenium project a 鈥榙redge and fill鈥� permit on the grounds that its 鈥榗ompensatory mitigation plan鈥櫬爄s non-compliant and the project is not in the 鈥榩ublic interest.鈥�
The Pebble Partnership has 60 days to submit its application for administrative appeal to the USACE鈥檚 Pacific Ocean Division Engineer, headquartered in Hawaii.
鈥淲e believe there is a sound basis for this permitting decision to be overturned鈥�
Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen
鈥淲e will take a significant proportion of the time allotted to us to complete an exhaustive review of the administrative record pertinent to the Pebble project environmental impact statement (EIS) and ROD, to prepare a comprehensive and substantive appeal and submit an RFA to the division engineer,鈥� Northern Dynasty CEO聽Ron Thiessen said in a media statement.
鈥淚t is our view that this decision, the process by which it was reached and the facts upon which it is based stand as a significant outlier from standard USACE precedent and practice. We believe there is a sound basis for this permitting decision to be overturned.鈥�
Thiessen said Northern Dynasty and the Pebble Partnership intend to challenge the USACE鈥檚 permitting decision on procedural, substantive and legal grounds.
Northern Dynasty contends that the RoD and the Public Interest Review (PIR) findings upon which it is based 鈥� are fundamentally unsupported by the Pebble Project EIS, issued in July.
With resource estimates including 6.5 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories containing 57 billion pounds of copper and 71 million ounces of gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum and 345 million silver ounces, if permitted, Pebble would be North America鈥檚 largest mine.
But Pebble鈥檚 permitting process has been surrounded by聽controversy and delays. Pebble faced environmental opposition from the onset as the mine would be near the world鈥檚 largest commercial sockeye salmon-producing region.
Midday Thursday, Northern Dynasty鈥檚 shares were up 10% on the TSE. The company has a C$243 million market capitalization.