CEO Admonishes Rush to Publish Before Due Diligence
Anchorage, AK – Pebble Partnership CEO issued the following statement after false reports surfaced Saturday morning in Politico that the Trump Administration had plans to block the project. Rather, it appears that the normal process continues to move forward for the project amid reports that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was going to publish details about its approach to wetlands mitigation for the project on Monday. Collier’s statement:
“We firmly believe that the implication pushed by Politico that the White House is going to kill the project is clearly in error, likely made by a rush to publish rather than doing the necessary diligence to track down the full story. We categorically deny any reports that the Trump Administration is going to return to an Obama-like approach that allowed politics to interfere with the normal, traditional permitting process. This president clearly believes in keeping politics out of permitting – something conservatives and the business community fully support.
“We were told earlier in the week that the USACE was going to publish a letter on Monday about the status of its approach to mitigation for the project. Based upon our ongoing interaction with the USACE, we believe the letter will discuss the need for a significant amount of mitigation for the project’s wetlands impacts. This has been our working premise for quite some time and has been the focus of our recent efforts near the site to complete additional wetlands survey work to better inform our plan. The process and time needed to develop a comprehensive wetlands mitigation plan might result in a slight delay beyond earlier USACE milestones. However, at this time we do not believe this is the case and we will be working with the corps to get them what they need as soon as possible.
“The USACE released a comprehensive EIS for the project that said the economic benefits of the project could be substantial and that the project can be done without harm to the Bristol Bay fishery. We know there are some who do not support the USACE’s findings but just because people don’t like the USACE conclusions does not mean their work has not been thorough.”