The company — consisting of Anglo American and Northern Dynasty Minerals — released its 2010 budget last Thursday. The Pebble Partnership is working to mine copper, gold and molybdenum, a component of steel, from the area near Iliamna.

"What we're doing is continuing the work from 2009," said Mike Heatwole, Pebble Partnership vice president of public affairs. He explained the budget's focus on a pre-feasibility study and ongoing economic and engineering evaluation.

These studies will help in the assembly of an environmental baseline document as well as a preliminary development plan, as a precursor to the permitting process. The environmental baseline document will be a compilation of all environmental data and analysis from the past five years.

Heatwole said factors like the rate of mining, duration of the mine and managing and mitigating potential environmental impacts would all be addressed the preliminary development plan.

Pebble Partnership CEO John Shively said in a statement released Thursday that the plan would be available for review by regional stakeholders before the company applies for permits.

Pebble Partnership hopes to begin the formal permitting process next year.

Heatwole said there are 67 major state and federal permits that need to be obtained before the company can go forward, plus many more minor ones.

"We believe before we're finished there will be hundreds of permits," he said.

The budget also includes site evaluation in Iliamna and exploratory drilling to support the studies.

The rest of this year's budget will go to continued public affairs work and administrative costs. Company representatives have been visiting communities in the state in order explain the project and its potential.

"Alaskans have a lot of questions on what's going on with Pebble," Heatwole said. It's a very well known topic but there's not a depth of knowledge, he added.

Workforce development is ongoing for the company as well, with training programs for local and regional workers to become drillers.

Heatwole said the Pebble Partnership has paid more than $400 million to get to this point.

But, he said, "we've got a ways to go."

In a related story, a group of opponents of the Pebble mine settled with the Alaska Public Offices Commission on Feb. 26, agreeing to pay the largest amount ever for alleged 2008 campaign finance disclosure violations.

The settlement did not contain an admission of wrongdoing.

The Alaska Public Offices Commission accepted a $100,000 settlement for a complaint filed against the Renewable Resources Coalition Inc., Alaskans for Clean Water and Anchorage millionaire Robert B. Gillam for violations of campaign donation disclosure law regarding the failed August 2008 Clean Water initiative, also known as Ballot Measure 4, according to the Juneau Empire.

The payment was reportedly less than the $198,610 the organization spent fighting the case.

The ballot measure would have created stricter rules for water-pollution discharges for large mines and could have been used to try and stop the proposed Pebble mine. The ballot measure's proponents and dissidents spent a combined total of about $12.5 million on it. The complainants include Pebble Limited Partnership, Pebble Mines Corp., and the Resource Development Council.

The complainants and an APOC investigation alleged that Gillam improperly donated a total of $1.75 million of his money to AFCW, funneling it through the RRC and another organization, Americans for Job Security.