The top boss of a proposed Alaskan mine, which has been through a roller coaster of regulations for the past 15 years, called the recommendation that the US environmental agency should veto the project a "massive regulatory overreach".
Mining waste from the Pebble Mine project, which has one of the world's largest copper and gold deposits, would threaten Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed, home to important salmon species including the world's largest sockeye salmon fisheries that have supported critical wildlife and a multibillion-dollar industry, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).