A federal judge in Anchorage heard nearly 150 minutes of oral arguments on June 25 in the case that will decide whether the EPA’s 2023 veto of the Pebble Mine stands or goes back to the drawing board. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, an Obama appointee, thanked the parties for their “thorough” remarks and said she would issue a decision in the near future, according to Courthouse News Service.
At stake is whether the Clean Water Act safeguards that have kept industrial-scale mining out of the Bristol Bay headwaters since 2023 remain in place, or whether the matter gets remanded for another round of EPA process.
In Favor and Against
The plaintiffs — Pebble Limited Partnership, the State of Alaska, and the Alaska Native village corporations Iliamna Natives Ltd. and Alaska Peninsula Corp. — argued the EPA overstepped its authority under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act, the rarely used provision that lets the agency block discharges into U.S. waters when it finds an “unacceptable adverse impact” on natural resources. Pebble lead counsel Keith Bradley pressed the language directly. “Significant is not the same as unacceptable,” he said. Luke Wake of the Pacific Legal Foundation, representing the two pro-mine village corporations, called “unacceptable” an “empty vessel” term and compared it to “annoying.” Alaska’s lead counsel Michael Connelly argued the state should be “the primary regulator of land and water use,” with the EPA acting only as a “last ditch backstop.”
Defending the veto, Department of Justice attorney Laura Brown told the court that the mine’s waste discharge would destroy salmon spawning habitat and affect 2,100 acres of wetlands, and she called Pebble’s salmon-impact assessments “absurd.” “In order to protect adult fish, you must protect them at every stage of the life cycle,” she said. Peter Van Tuyn, representing the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, reminded the judge that opposition to Pebble has held across administrations of both parties. “This is a rare issue on which multiple Democratic and Republican administrations have been in agreement,” he said.
Hopes for a Final Act
The 404(c) authority itself is uncommon. BBNC senior vice president Daniel Cheyette, speaking with KDLG after the hearing, noted that the EPA has invoked the provision only 14 times in the nearly 50-year history of the Clean Water Act, the Bristol Bay determination included. Cheyette called this round of oral argument his “hope that it is the kind of the final act, if you will,” while acknowledging that a remand back to EPA remains a possibility if Gleason finds for any of the plaintiffs’ claims.
There is no published timeline. Gleason said “near future”; the BBNC’s previous projection had pointed closer to year’s end. For anglers who have watched this fight grind through agencies and courts since the Obama administration, the next move belongs to the judge. Bristol Bay’s 2026 sockeye season is underway in the meantime, and the rivers the mine would sit above are running fish.
See prior MidCurrent coverage: Pebble Mine Update: Federal Court Deadline Looms as Alaska Legislature Debates Permanent Protections.
