A new Nome dredge application enters the pipeline that just rejected a fiercely fought gold mine

A new suction-dredge mining application has landed with Alaska regulators near Nome — a routine filing on its face, but one entering a regulatory process that just delivered a major defeat to one of the most contested gold-mining proposals in recent state history.

The new application, for suction dredging in the Nome Mining District, begins the state's review. On its own it authorizes nothing; the Department of Natural Resources has simply received it, and its scale and footprint remain to be seen. Offshore suction dredging near Nome is a regulated activity — depending on where a dredge operates and its size, miners may need a mine permit, a land-use permit, or both.

What gives the filing weight is the fight that preceded it. Separately, DNR denied a permit for IPOP LLC's Bonanza Channel project, a far larger cutterhead suction-dredge proposal in Safety Sound, an estuary about 30 miles east of Nome that Native families depend on for fishing, egg-gathering and hunting. The Nevada company had sought since 2018 to dredge roughly 2.7 miles of the channel bed, affecting more than 150 acres. The state grounded its denial in the public interest, citing IPOP's insufficient exploration data and the project's obstruction of navigation through the channel — concluding that a large-scale dredge unsupported by exploration data would cause "unnecessary and undue degradation."

The opposition to that project was broad and unified: the tribal consortium Kawerak, several Alaska Native corporations, the Village of Solomon and the City of Nome all lodged opposition, the city by unanimous council resolution. "Kawerak strenuously opposes the Application, and asks that DNR deny the same," the consortium wrote. IPOP has maintained the project is economically viable and has appealed. Five Norton Sound tribes are separately suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the federal wetlands permit it granted the project, with a judge hearing arguments in June.

The new Nome dredge filing now enters that same review process — one that a determined coalition has shown it will contest when a project threatens the waters they rely on.