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trailmonkee

(2,681 posts)
Sat Sep 23, 2017, 03:38 AM Sep 2017

EPA head met with a mining CEO -- and then pushed forward a controversial mining project

Source: CNN

(CNN)Within hours of meeting with a mining company CEO, the new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency directed his staff to withdraw a plan to protect the watershed of Bristol Bay, Alaska, one of the most valuable wild salmon fisheries on Earth, according to interviews and government emails obtained by CNN.

The meeting between EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Tom Collier, CEO of Pebble Limited Partnership, took place on May 1, Collier and his staff confirmed in an interview with CNN. At 10:36 a.m. that same day, the EPA's acting general counsel, Kevin Minoli, sent an email to agency staff saying the administrator had "directed" the agency to withdraw an Obama-era proposal to protect the ecologically valuable wetland in southwest Alaska from certain mining activities.

In 2014, after three years of peer-reviewed study, the Obama administration's EPA invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act to try to protect Bristol Bay after finding that a mine "would result in complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources" in some areas of the bay.

"All of these losses would be irreversible," the agency said.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/politics/pebble-epa-bristol-bay-invs/index.html

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George Eliot

(701 posts)
9. Natural resources are what made America so prosperous in the beginning.
Sat Sep 23, 2017, 10:31 PM
Sep 2017

There was no American spirit except one for fortune. Resources made millionaires and now billionaires. This is a tragedy.

George Eliot

(701 posts)
8. Where's the outrage?This mine will ruin an extremely critical habitat.Prohibiting it is a no brainer
Sat Sep 23, 2017, 10:29 PM
Sep 2017

I just can't believe it. This is a tragedy and one of what will be many I know.

riversedge

(70,188 posts)
11. Last time, Pruitt actually called Murkowski and threatened Alaska, and now he does it behing
Sun Sep 24, 2017, 01:43 PM
Sep 2017

the scenes. He is vindictive just like Trump

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