"Alaska Judge Dismisses Pebble Lawsuit Against EPA As Premature"

"The company promoting the controversial and beleaguered Pebble mine project lost a legal battle Friday when a federal judge threw out one of its lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency.

U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland ruled, after listening to brief oral arguments in his Anchorage courtroom, that the Pebble Limited Partnership does not have valid legal basis for its lawsuit seeking to stop the EPA’s deliberations about whether it should block development of large-scale mining in the region.

Holland said the Pebble partnership is premature in its challenge to EPA’s current process of considering invocation of a Clean Water Act provision to prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from issuing a wetlands-fill permit critical to construction of the mine."

Yereth Rosen reports for Alaska Dispatch News September 26, 2014.