TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals and partner Anglo American have assembled an executive and management team to lead their jointly owned Pebble project, in Alaska, through the permitting phase.

In April the companies named John Shively as CEO of the Pebble partnership, and most of the other senior posts have since been filled, Northern Dynasty said in a statement on Monday.

Besides others, wildlife biologist Ken Taylor has been appointed environment vice president, Mike Heatwole will serve as public vice president and Josie Harmon has been named human resources and administrative services vice president.

In total, there are 27 staff in the Pebble Partnership's corporate office in Anchorage, while contract and full-time personnel working at the Pebble project site near Iliamna, Alaska, peaked at 232 this summer.

About 130 individuals from local communities worked on the project in 2008.

Northern Dynasty and Anglo American plan to complete an environmental baseline document on the giant Pebble copper/gold/molybdenum project in the first quarter of next year.

Last month, the project sidestepped a potential landmine, when Alaskans voted against a ballot measure that proposed to block approvals for any project that in any way polluted waters in salmon-bearing areas.

The measure was targeted primarlily at the Pebble project.

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