"The fate of one of Alaska's largest and most contentious wetland projects may rest with a former congressional staffer who once said some nasty things about wetlands.
Now deputy assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Water, Dennis Lee Forsgren Jr. was an aide to Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young in 1993 when he decried forcing developers to compensate for damaging water resources by preserving wetlands and streams elsewhere.
"They always show you in pictures nice marshes, but most of what we're talking about any self-respecting duck would refuse to land on," Forsgren told Investor's Business Daily.
With EPA water chief David Ross recusing himself for his connections to Pebble LP, the mining company promoting a massive copper and gold mining project in Alaska wetlands, Forsgren is his agency's point man on the project, which critics say would endanger one of the world's great salmon fisheries."
Ariel Wittenberg and Dylan Brown report for Greenwire May 31, 2018, in the third part of a series.
SEE ALSO:
Part 1: "Alaska: No Offsets, No Problem As Army Corps OKs Wetland Projects" (Greenwire)
Part 2:"Alaska: Why The Army Corps Sank Wetland-Offset Program" (Greenwire)
