UPDATE: The Trump administration denied a permit for the Pebble project Wednesday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the “plan for the discharge of fill material does not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines and concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest.” This may be the final blow to Pebble, given the opposition to the mine by the incoming Biden administration.

The stock of Northern Dynasty dropped by 50 percent shortly after the announcement.

Newly minted opponents of the Pebble Mine project, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, say the mine promoters must end the secrecy about their latest mitigation plan.

“We write to request that Northern Dynasty immediately release that mitigation plan to the public so that Alaskans—particularly those who live in the Bristol Bay region—can properly evaluate and understand it,” Murkowski and Sullivan wrote Tuesday to Ron Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty Minerals in Vancouver.

They are right.

“While we continue to oppose approval of the project based on the existing record, we believe Northern Dynasty must release its proposed mitigation plan for a simple reason: a significant portion of the public has lost trust in what its executives actually plan to do and how they expect to be able to win approval from federal regulators,” Murkowski and Sullivan said.

It’s not really certain if Mark Twain actually said the definition of a mine is a “hole in the ground owned by a liar,” but the line is appropriate in this case because there are many people in Alaska who now think the owners are lying and they don’t even have a hole in the ground yet.

The mitigation plan was worked out in collaboration with the Dunleavy administration, but the state continues to claim it has no position on the project. Dunleavy has been acting almost like an employee of the project for the last two years.

The mine promoters have long recognized him as an ally, sending him ghost-written documents and coaching him in private on how to deal with President Trump, potential investors and regulators.

“They’ve always been supportive kind of behind the scenes but more vocal so this mitigation plan that we’re putting together, almost all of the land is state land,” Thiessen said on the infamous Pebble Tapes.

The plan would require about 112,000 acres of “actual mitigation area,” according to the state summary of an Aug. 4 meeting of state and company officials.

I suspect one reason the mine has kept the new mitigation plan secret is that it may be attempting to protect Dunleavy and ward off complaints about the lack of public review regarding what action or agreements the state is considering to help Pebble.

The mine may be working with Dunleavy to have one state agency request another state agency to formally preserve additional state lands under an “Interagency Land Management Assignment.”

It was Thiessen who put himself in a political pit with Murkowski and Sullivan because of what he said about them in private to people he thought were potential foreign investors in Pebble.

“Senator Murkowski, she’s very political. She in her heart wants the project to go ahead. She will say things that appeal to sometimes people’s emotions, but that won’t do any damage to the project overall. So Senator Murkowski we feel good about,” Thiessen said.

Thiessen said the mine was working with Sullivan to “make sure he doesn’t say something negative” and that it is “perfect for permitting” to have both senators stay quiet about Pebble.

The release of the tapes embarrassed Murkowski and Sullivan and now both say they oppose the mine and have opposed it for the past three months.

Their latest letter to Pebble is a political document in the sense that as U.S. senators they should be able to acquire the mitigation document from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Instead, they are putting the pressure on Thiessen, who is still in trouble with them over the tapes, which is not “perfect for permitting.”

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