Alaska tribes fight controversial gold mine project
Monique Merrill
(CN) — Alaska Native tribes asked a federal judge on Tuesday to toss the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of a gold mining project that would bring industrial suction dredging to a pristine northwestern Alaska estuary.
The tribes — Village of Solomon, Native Village of Council, King Island Native Community, Chinik Eskimo Community and Native Village of White Mountain — told U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, a Barack Obama appointee, that the Corps ignored key concerns when it approved the project.
The Corps took an “inconsistent approach,” Erin Colón, Earthjustice attorney representing the tribes, told Gleason.
In 2024, the Corps granted a Clean Water Act permit to IPOP LLC, a Nevada-based company proposing to mine for gold in the Bonanza Channel, about 25 miles east of Nome, Alaska.
The project would be the largest suction dredging operation in the state and the first of its kind in an ecologically intact estuary. Suction dredging is a mining technique used to extract minerals from the bottom of bodies of water.
The Corps’ Alaska District initially denied the permit in 2022 based on concerns from the tribes and government agencies, concluding it would contribute to significant degradation of the waters, but the Hawai’i-based Pacific Division reversed the denial in 2024.
In approving the permit, the Pacific Division didn’t issue a new public notice or consult with other agencies, as it determined there weren’t substantial changes to the project.
For millennia, the tribes have relied on the Safety Sound and Bonanza River ecosystem for fishing, berry picking, egg gathering, and hunting birds and marine mammals. They say the project would jeopardize their longstanding interest and could permanently alter the distinct ecosystem. The area is also a destination for birdwatchers and ecotourists, which support local businesses in a region where economic opportunities are limited.
Colón urged the judge to consider the environmental impact of the project.
“Failure is the most common outcome,” Colón said about the likelihood of the estuary recovering to its pre-dredged state.
But the government disagreed and argued the Corps made an informed and reasonable decision.
“A decision of less than ideal clarity is still not arbitrary and capricious,” Justice Department attorney Samuel Vice said.
The Corps considered the environmental concerns raised by other agencies and determined the project’s impacts were not significant enough to require an environmental impact statement — a decision the Corps argued is owed substantial deference.
The proposed mining operation would involve cutting and vacuuming up the estuary bed, removing approximately 4.5 million cubic yards of material over five years — a volume the tribes noted is approximately 1.5 times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The company would extract gold by sorting the material on a processing barge and return the sorted materials, minus the gold, to the channel. The dredged material would be placed in a nearly 160-acre area, and the project would convert certain areas of vegetated shallows to mud flats — all changes the government contends are temporary impacts.
Vice argued there were limited studies to compare the project to since the channel is a “very unique estuary.”
Plus, the mining company will be required to monitor impacted areas to track recovery and implement adaptive measures if recovery doesn’t meet expectations, the Corps contended.
But the tribes say the Corps didn’t “address the fundamental question of whether and how the estuary will recover,” Colón said. That question would be best evaluated in the form of an environmental impact statement, according to the tribes.
In a statement to Courthouse News, Colón said the Corps has ignored the concerns raised by multiple agencies.
“Today, the federal government argued the division didn’t have to justify its change of position; we argued that administrative law demands otherwise,” Colón said.
The tribes requested Gleason to declare the Corps permit is unlawful and vacate it, with instructions that the agency prepare an environmental impact statement before issuing any new permit for the project.
Gleason did not indicate when she would rule.
IPOP initially pitched the project in 2018 alongside a now-defunct plan for a reality television series called “Rivers of Gold” and a luxury gold brand. The company later dropped those promotional efforts but has continued to pursue permits for the mining operation, including suing the Corps in the past to force permit approval. That earlier case was dismissed.
The company has also faced setbacks at the state level. Last year, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources rejected IPOP’s application for a land use permit and reclamation plan, citing insufficient exploration data and concerns about blocking public navigation in the Bonanza Channel.
Meanwhile, Kawerak, a regional tribal nonprofit, has appealed a state-issued wastewater discharge permit for the project, further compounding the mine’s legal and regulatory hurdles.