TSX- and NYSE American-listed Northern Dynasty Minerals has completed an environmental, social and governance (ESG) report for its Pebble copper/gold/molybdenum/silver/rhenium project, in Alaska.

The company notes that the report addresses a range of progressive principles, practices and commitments that the company has employed at Pebble over the past two decade to advance the project toward environmentally sound and socially responsible development.

“For many reasons, including the Pebble deposit’s size and significance, its location in a vast region that supports world-class fisheries, and the active campaigning of national environmental organisations, the Pebble project has been marked by public controversy and rhetoric.

“It’s unfortunate because so much of the good work done to plan, permit, develop and operate a modern copper mine at Pebble that would, in many ways, set a new standard for responsible mineral development in the US has been obscured,” Northern Dynasty president and CEO Ron Thiessen says.

He points out that the report summarises the major ESG polices, planning and engineering approaches, and social commitment that the company has made since acquiring the project in 2001 through to receiving a negative record of decision (RoD) from the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in late 2020.

In July 2020, following two-and-a-half years of reviews by the USACE and eight federal cooperating agencies, three State cooperating agencies, the Lake and Peninsula Borough and federally recognised tribes, the final environmental impact statement from the project was published.

It found the proposed mine would not have a measurable impact on local fish populations or the commercial, subsistence and sport fisheries that depend on them, Northern Dynasty states.

However, the USACE issued a negative RoD for the project in November 2020 which is currently under appeal.