Pebble Partnership legal team agrees to cap fees at $1m

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – The legal team defending the rights of project proponent the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) and parent company Northern Dynasty Minerals has agreed to cap fees at $1-million, to the point where motions for summary judgment in the case have been fully argued to the court and are ripe for adjudication.

Northern Dynasty Minerals took the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to court in November 2014 over the EPA’s alleged violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in advancing the EPA's Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment (BBWA) study and the subsequent pre-emptive veto process under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act (CWA) of the company’s flagship Pebble copper/gold project, in south-western Alaska.

Adjudication is expected to occur in January 2017.

In November 2014, a US federal court judge granted the Pebble Partnership's request for a preliminary injunction in the case, forbidding EPA from taking any further steps to finalise its CWA 404(c) veto of the Pebble Project, which signalled that PLP had a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on the merits of its case.

"The significance of today's announcement is we now have certainty that Northern Dynasty will have the financial and professional resources necessary to pursue its legal case against EPA to a final conclusion," stated Northern Dynasty president and CEO Ron Thiessen, adding that the law firm’s willingness to cap its legal fees at $1-million reflects its confidence in Pebble's FACA case.

He believes that, from the tens of thousands of pages of communication, memos and reports obtained under discovery and the Freedom of Information Act, and from the deposition of key government employees, it is now clear that EPA's frequent, intensive and ongoing engagement with environmentalist nongovernmental agencies and anti-mining activists in planning and executing its BBWA study and CWA 404(c) strategy occurred in violation of federal laws intended to provide for open, honest and transparent decision-making.

Thiessen said evidence compiled for the lawsuit further makes it clear that EPA had determined to veto the Pebble project before undertaking any scientific inquiry, and developed the BBWA solely for the purpose of justifying its pre-determined position.

International law firm Steptoe & Johnson will be due a success fee payment upon prevailing in the PLP’s FACA litigation or upon other positive outcomes.

"Either way, we have every confidence that we will prevail and Pebble will ultimately move forward to initiate the environmental-impact statement process under the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act, unencumbered by any extraordinary development restrictions as proposed by the EPA," Thiessen said.

Estimates show that the Pebble deposit comprises measured and indicated resources of 5.94-billion tonnes, grading 0.78% copper equivalent and containing 55-billion pounds of copper, 67-million ounces of gold and 3.3-billion pounds of molybdenum.

The deposit also has 4.84-billion tonnes of inferred resources, grading 0.53% copper equivalent and containing 26-billion pounds of copper, 40-million ounces of gold and 2.3-billion pounds of molybdenum.