In December, the Pedro Bay Native Corporation (PBC) in Alaska placed 44,000 acres of its property under a $20 million conservation easement that may be the nail in the coffin for the proposed Pebble Gold and Copper Mine in Bristol Bay.
The Pebble Mine ore deposit is considered the second-largest ore body of its type in the world. However, most of the ore is low grade which requires significant processing. Hence the need to move the ore from the mine site on a tributary to Bristol Bay waters to a shipping port at Pile Bay on Cook Inlet.