Yesterday, The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska rejected a challenge to a Clean Water Act permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Johnson Tract mineral exploration project in South Central Alaska. The court granted summary judgment to the United States on every claim and left the permit in place. The permit allows JT Mining to build an access road and upgrade an existing airstrip serving an exploratory drilling site on private land the company owns inside Lake Clark National Park.
“This decision protects responsible mineral exploration on private land,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “The court’s decision reaffirms that federal agencies are entitled to deference when they make scientific and predictive judgments, and it keeps an important Alaska project moving forward.”
The Johnson Tract is a 20,942-acre private inholding at the headwaters of the Johnson River. JT Mining applied for a Section 404 permit in 2023 to build access to an upland exploratory drilling site. The Corps solicited and reviewed public comment, consulted several Alaska Native Tribes, and issued the permit in September 2024. The permit authorizes the discharge of 67,800 cubic yards of general embankment fill and 5,200 cubic yards of surfacing material into 5.14 acres of waters of the United States to construct a 2.3-mile access road and to realign and expand the existing airstrip to 5,000 feet. Fill will be sourced locally from material sites located in uplands, avoiding wetland and stream fill.
Plaintiffs argued principally that the Corps violated Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act by defining the action area too narrowly and declining to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service about the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale. The whale’s designated critical habitat includes Tuxedni Bay, roughly ten miles east of the project area.
The court rejected that claim. It held the Corps reasonably defined the action area to reach the project footprint, a 300-foot buffer marking the outer limit of detectable noise disturbance, and three miles of downstream aquatic environment, and that the agency gave a reasoned explanation for those boundaries. The court noted that the permit authorizes the discharge of fill, not flights, and that it conveys no right to fly aircraft over Tuxedni Bay; air traffic over the national park is regulated by the National Park Service. The court further held the Corps acted reasonably in treating a future mine, and any flights a mine might generate, as speculative. Because no listed species or critical habitat is present in the action area, no consultation was required.
The court likewise upheld the Corps’ work under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Clean Water Act, rejecting arguments that the agency failed to verify the applicant’s acid rock drainage and metals leaching data and failed to resolve uncertainty about jurisdictional waters at the material sites. Quoting the Supreme Court’s decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, the court reiterated that “[t]he bedrock principle of judicial review in NEPA cases can be stated in a word: Deference.”
Trial attorneys from ENRD’s Wildlife and Marine Resources Section, Natural Resources Section, and Environmental Defense Section handled this matter, with support from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska.