U.S. Army Corps wants IPOP litigation moved to Alaska

By Megan Gannon
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has requested that its legal dispute with IPOP play out in an Alaska federal court.
The Nevada-based outfit IPOP seeks to dredge for gold in the Bonanza Channel near Nome and to film those efforts for a reality TV show, “Rivers of Gold.” Like any mining project, such an undertaking requires permits from state and federal government agencies. But IPOP—along with California-based  company Rivers of Gold and two individual investors—filed a civil lawsuit in May alleging that the Corps was creating “outrageous delays” in its permitting process.
The plaintiffs filed the civil lawsuit in the U.S District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Their basis for choosing that location was that the two investors listed on the lawsuit were Louisiana residents.
In a motion filed on July 25, the Corps requested that this court battle be transferred to the U.S. District of Alaska.  
“Aside from merely alleging that the California-based partnership that hired IPOP had two Louisiana residents among its ‘many investors,’ Plaintiffs’ complaint is devoid of any references to Louisiana whatsoever,” the Corps wrote in their motion.
The Corps argued that the move would be in the public’s interest because the action concerns “a hyper-local issue of a permitting decision in a sensitive area of both ecological and tribal importance” that the local community around Nome has been following closely.
The District of Alaska would also be much better equipped to consider issues that IPOP has blamed for the permitting delay, such as tribal subsistence rights along the Bonanza Channel, the Corps argued.
A federal judge in Louisiana was initially scheduled to decide whether to grant the motion in mid-September, but both parties have requested time to file additional documents.
IPOP’s legal team now has until Aug. 29 to file any counterarguments, and the Corps has a Sept. 13 deadline to reply.