Three Alaska Native tribes filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Donlin Gold Mine on April 5.
The Tuluksak Native Community, ONC, and the Organized Village of Kwethluk claim various federal agencies improperly permitted the gold mine project.
This is one of many legal challenges the project has faced but company staff say they are confident it will beat this challenge too.
Donlin Gold plans to build an open pit gold mine about 10 miles north of Crooked Creek, on the Y-K Delta. If built, it would be one of the world’s largest gold mines.
It’s a polarizing project, one that has seen legal challenges throughout the multi-year process that it took to get an environmental impact statement, and its state level permits.
“We as the Donlin Gold stakeholders believe that the lawsuit is without merit,” said External Affairs manager, Kristina Woolston. “We're confident the actual record will once again, fully support the agency's decisions.”
The Donlin Gold Project is being developed in partnership with Alaska Native Corporation landowners, Calista Corporation, who owns the minerals and a portion of the surface rights and also the Kuskokwim Corporation.
Earthjustice, representing six federally recognized tribes across four cases against Donlin, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, in Anchorage. The environmental law firm claims there are three fundamental failings of the environmental impact statement and permits for the mine.
For one, it argues that the environmental impact statement, or EIS, didn’t fully disclose the findings of a health impact assessment done by the State of Alaska. Earthjustice also argues that the EIS didn’t consider the potential of a catastrophic spill from the proposed tailings dam and how that would irreparably harm the region’s people, environment, and subsistence resources.
Finally, it argues that federal permits issued for the mine did not protect Rainbow Smelt – a subsistence food resource – from increased barge traffic on the Kuskokwim River.
But Woolston said Donlin supports the federal permitting process and results.
“In reviewing the lawsuit that was filed, it doesn't appear that there is new information that wasn't already addressed throughout the more than six year EIS process,” she said.
In addition to the federal lawsuit, other state lawsuits brought by Tribes represented by Earthjustice are pending against state agencies that granted Donlin state permits.
*This story was corrected on April 13th to adequately reflect the role of Earthjustice.
Earthjustice does not actually represent itself in these cases, so it is the plaintiffs who are suing.
