Northern Dynasty Minerals: Pebble Partnership to Challenge US Army Corps of Engineers’ Finding That Compensatory Mitigation Plan for Alaska’s Pebble Project Is Non-Compliant

About this update from Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / December 17, 2020 / Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (TSX:NDM)(NYSE American:NAK) ("Northern Dynasty" or the "Company") believes the US Army Corps of Engineers' ("USACE") perfunctory rejection last month of the Compensatory Mitigation Plan ("CMP") submitted for Alaska's Pebble Project is emblematic of the lead federal agency's recent permitting decision at Pebble, arguing it is contrary to law, unprecedented in Alaska and unsupported by the administrative record. Northern Dynasty's 100%-owned, US-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership (the "Pebble Partnership") is preparing a ‘request for appeal' ("RFA") with respect to the USACE's November 25, 2020 issuance of a negative Record of Decision ("ROD") for the proposed copper-gold-molybdenum-silver-rhenium mine. To be submitted in January 2021, the Pebble Partnership's RFA is expected to argue, among other things, that the USACE's mitigation requirements for Pebble are contrary to policy and precedent in Alaska, and the agency's rejection of its CMP is both procedurally and substantively invalid. "The US Army Corps of Engineers issued a finding this summer that Pebble would cause ‘significant degradation' to aquatic resources in the project area, and on that basis issued mitigation requirements that were both extreme and unprecedented in Alaska," said Northern Dynasty President & CEO Ron Thiessen. "Although we believe the USACE's ‘significant degradation' finding to be contrary to law and unsupported by the administrative record as established by the Environmental Impact Statement ("EIS"), we set out in good faith to meet their demand for in-kind and in-watershed mitigation at a very high and unprecedented ratio for Alaska - and after a tremendous amount of professional effort and investment, we did it. "For the USACE to summarily reject a CMP that is directly responsive to its requirements, to do it on the basis of what we believe to be largely minor and arbitrary deficiencies and without giving the proponent an opportunity to respond to those alleged deficiencies or otherwise amend its application is, we believe, without precedent in the long history of responsible resource development in Alaska." The Pebble Project as proposed would directly or indirectly impact 3,650 acres of wetlands and other water bodies, as well as 185 miles of streams. To compensate for these impac...

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