Mining, clean water and healthy ecosystems can and do exist together. This is the idea behind corporate social responsibility initiatives within the extractive industry. The mining industry produces waste that has negative impacts on the environment; however, mining companies have made and continue to make significant changes and investments in research and development to modernize their past practices. The industry is proactive and demonstrates strong environmental leadership. To maintain their operating licenses, companies must consider and address social and environmental issues throughout the project lifecycle, from design to closure and future impacts. Recently, green mining initiative groups (particularly in the United States and Canada) have begun to work more closely with governments, industry, academia, NGOs, and other interested stakeholders to improve the environmental performance of the mining sector and create green technology opportunities.Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. is a publicly traded mineral exploration and development company that is part of the Hunter Dickinson Group based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Northern Dynasty's sole focus is the advancement of the Pebble Project, the world's largest undeveloped gold and copper project in Alaska. With many more permitting milestones to come, Northern Dynasty is well positioned with the support of a driving force within the mining industry, associated company, Hunter Dickinson. Within the group, there are eight public companies. CEO Ronald Thiessen describes the group as an “incubator” of mineral resource companies. The group places a project within the company and takes care of it for the shareholders of that company until they make the decision to create it as a joint venture...... middle of paper .... .. it "...The EPA released drafts of the watershed assessment in May 2012 and April 2013, to widespread criticism of the report's methodology and flawed conclusions, including from the State of Alaska, Alaska Native groups and expert peer reviewers commissioned by the federal agency" and insists that "the EPA (had) repeatedly failed to follow its own guidelines and policies regarding 'watershed assessment, risk assessment and peer review, and violated the US Information Quality Act' Thiessen also adds that the report did not contain any suggestions or regulatory actions that might affect future development of the project and that it looks forward to "...defining a proposed development plan for Pebble and having it reviewed by federal and state regulatory agencies under the law." the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in the months and years to come” (Lazenby, 2014).