Liberty Star Uranium and Metals Corp (LBSR)

[LongHawl]

Pebble CEO says project still moving forward

1paper, there is a lot of fight left in this guy.
If he clears the way for Pebble he clears the way for
Liberty's Big Chunk

A friend was at this talk, this guy has a good history.
Kinda wish he was working for LBSR, but in a round about way
he is

Jeff Richardson/[e-mail] | Posted: Friday, April 11, 2014 12:00 am
FAIRBANKS — The demise of the Pebble Mine has been greatly exaggerated, according to
executives leading the push for the massive Southwest Alaska copper and gold project.
The Pebble Partnership lost a major partner in September, when Anglo American pulled out of an
exploration deal it shared with fellow mining company Northern Dynasty. Last week Pebble shed a
major shareholder when Rio Tinto gave away its 19 percent stake to a pair of Alaska charities.
Those departures have generated forecasts of doom in many media reports about the controversial
prospect, but Pebble CEO Tom Collier said he still sees a viable path for development. The longtime
Washington, D.C., regulatory lawyer moved to Alaska to take the top job at Pebble in February.
“I would have stayed in Washington, D.C., if I thought this was done,” Collier said Thursday after
providing an update on the project at the Alaska Miners Association Conference in Fairbanks.
Former Pebble CEO John Shively, who now serves as chairman of its board of directors, agreed that
the project has a realistic future. He said the prospect is simply too valuable to go undeveloped
forever.
“Is it going to be difficult? Sure,” Shively said. “But there aren’t a lot of easy projects left.”
The biggest threat to the prospect isn’t unrest among its investors, Collier said. He blamed
Environmental Protection Agency intervention for sabotaging Pebble before its permits have been
filed.
The site’s proximity to important Bristol Bay salmon spawning habitat has made it a controversial
project. In February the EPA cited the Clean Water Act as authority to halt permitting while it
determines whether Pebble will “have significant and irreversible negative impacts on the Bristol Bay
watershed.”
Collier, who previously worked in the U.S. Department of the Interior during the Clinton
administration, said that halting the process before permits have been issued is a new level of activism
for the EPA. If unchallenged, he said it could have far-reaching implications for resource
development.
The Pebble Partnership has filed a request with the EPA inspector general to look at allegations that
agency employees actively worked to kill the mine as early as 2008, he said. He’s also hopeful that
the state will file a lawsuit against the agency this month.
“Some people at EPA had a predetermined goal they wanted to accomplish, and they accomplished it,”