Army Corps of Engineers Does an About Face on Studying the Impacts of the Proposed Graphite One Mine

By Hal Shepherd

A little good news for a change.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided to draft a more comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement rather than an Environmental Assessment for the controversial Graphite One mine that would be located in the Imuruk Basin of Northwestern Alaska. According to an e-mail received by the Native Villages of Brevig Mission, Teller and Mary’s Igloo (Tribes) on July 9, the agency has also “determined that additional time is needed to conclude our Section 106 Consultation process under the National Historic Preservation Act.”

Graphite One, a Canadian-based mining company, is applying for a federal permit for a 1.1-mile-long open-pit mine in Alaska’s remote Kigluaik Mountains. Access to what the mining company claims is the largest graphite deposit in the United States would also require construction of a 17.3-mile-long road cutting across salmon streams and archeological sites, and water withdrawals from over a dozen streams, further jeopardizing already low numbers of chum and pink salmon returns at a time when climate change is warming the region.

The Kigluaik Mountains ~ Photo by Hal Shepherd

The Tribes and their partner organizations have consistently called for adequate environmental and cultural impact analysis as part of Graphite One’s permitting process, given potential impacts on community health, subsistence, water, and cultural resources. Nevertheless, last year the Corps issued a Notice of the mining company’s application for a Section 404 permit under the Clean Water Act and announced that, under the so-called Fast-41 process, it would likely complete the less involved EA rather than an EIS so that the permit for the Mine could be issued by this September. As a result of this announcement, opposition to the truncated review and to the Mine grew substantially and now includes tribes, tribal organizations, and the local community in the region.

Up until the decision to conduct an EIS, the Tribes had been concerned that, to encourage the Corps to limit the Mine’s impacts, Graphite One arbitrarily underestimated the potential impacts on wetlands and watersheds as part of a Jurisdiction Determination Report submitted to the agency. Additionally, the decision to draft an EIS as part of the permitting process is somewhat surprising, given that the Corps has been under pressure to implement proposed limits on Clean Water Act protections and to implement Trump administration executive orders that promote industrial extraction and mining of critical minerals in Alaska.

As a result of the recent decision, under FAST-41, the Corps has changed several milestone dates and added an EIS action to the Permitting Timetable. The new deadline to complete the EIS and issue the permit for the mine is September 2027, and the deadline to complete the Section 106 review under the National Historic Preservation Act is March 2027.

For its part, Graphite One maintains that it supports the Corps decision. According to Anthony Huston, President and CEO of Graphite One, “We fully support the Army Corps’ recommendation to conduct a comprehensive EIS review. This approach ensures transparency and provides the opportunity for all stakeholders—including local communities, Indigenous groups, and regulatory agencies—to have their voices heard and concerns addressed in a thorough manner.”

This is an about-face from the Mining Company’s initial stance when it pushed to keep the Corps from conducting an EIS. As illustrated by an e-mail to the Nome Nugget sent by Graphite One Senior Vice President Kevin Trophy last November, which states “after reviewing our project plan, the Army Corps of Engineers determined our project will not impact enough wetlands to necessitate an EIS…Given the very small wetlands footprint, the Corps made the initial decision to schedule the project as an Environmental Assessment (EA)…” It’s possible that the sudden change of heart is due to the fact that the mining company does not expect a delay in the project’s permitting timeline. “Graphite One anticipates that the EIS schedule will align with State of Alaska permitting requirements and does not expect any delay to the proposed 2029 production startup date for the Graphite Creek Project.”

The tribes believe that the original extremely low impacts estimate was based on the anticipation of a new federal Rule that would eliminate Clean Water Act protections for the vast majority of wetlands throughout the Western U.S. and Alaska. Because the Corps is one of two federal agencies that is directly involved in drafting the latest proposed Rule, there has been speculation whether Graphite One’s originally low estimates of the Mine’s impacts were because they had been working with the Corps to apply the highly restrictive definition of the draft Rule to such impacts even before it is finalized.

According to the Corps, the startling about-face on the significance of the Mine’s impacts is based on multiple factors; however, the Tribes point to increasing local opposition, including several public meetings and Government-to-Government consultations between the Corps and the Three Tribes last spring, in which the Tribes and local communities expressed overwhelming opposition to the mine and implored the agency to conduct a full EIS.

According to Kacey Okbaok, President of the Native Village of Teller Traditional Council: “The public meetings last spring in Teller and Brevig Mission as well as Nome were packed and not a single person at those meetings spoke up in favor of the mine. During these meetings, we attempted to convey to the Army Corps of Engineers how critical the subsistence and Cultural resources are to our communities. We thank all of the tribes, tribal organizations, and community members who have stood with us to obtain adequate analysis of the impacts of this proposed mine.”