An independent review of the proposed Pebble Mine may be in the works thanks to a last-minute funding request by Kodiak Rep. Alan Austerman.

On Saturday, Austerman requested $750,000 for a third-party study in the state’s capital budget. His section survived the final day of edits before the legislative session ended late Sunday night.

An independent study of Pebble has long been a goal for Austerman. He represents both Kodiak and the villages around the mine’s intended site. He proposed a bill for a larger study last legislative session, but it never left committee.

“A mine of this magnitude, in this place, will have impacts to the region and its residents that are staggering,” Austerman said Monday in a prepared statement. “To this date, the State of Alaska has declined to take up any kind of analysis of the socioeconomic impacts, good or bad.”

Opponents of the mine fear development poses too great a risk of contaminating some of the world’s best trout and salmon streams.

Meanwhile, Mike Heatwole, spokesman for mine developer Pebble Partnership said the study is too broadly defined.

“The language that was included in the closing hours of the (legislative) session raised questions in terms of scope,” he said. “What exactly is the government really trying to ascertain?”

Heatwolte was in Kodiak Saturday as a guest at the ComFish forum, where he took a question about the study.

He told the audience the proposed study is too broad and also called it “premature,” because while the Pebble Partnership has outlined its basic plans for the mine, its engineers are still deciding the project’s specifics.

The corporate partnership recently announced it will push back to 2011 the process of applying for the 67 state and federal permits it will need from state and local governments.

This year, Kodiak’s ComFish forum included Heatwole; opponents of the mine from nonprofit Trout Unlimited; and a representative from the State of Alaska who outlined the permitting process for the mine.

Among the main questions still before Pebble Partnership is whether the mine would take the form of an open pit mine, an underground mine, or a combination of the two.

Pebble Partnership estimates the mine contains 80.6 billion pounds of copper and 107.4 million ounces of gold among other valuable metals. It also estimates the mine will create 1,000 jobs.

Austerman has not been satisfied waiting for the Pebble Partnership to apply for permits.

“As a policymaker for the State of Alaska, I’m disappointed that the attitude of the state toward this project so far has been to ‘wait and see,”’ he said.

The research funding request in Sunday’s capital budget does not specify a third-party researcher to do the project. But an earlier bill identifies the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization that frequently advises the government on massive research projects.

Along with the rest of the capital budget, the funding for the pebble study has to pass the desk of Gov. Sean Parnell, who has questioned the necessity of an independent review according to the Anchorage Daily News’ Pebble Blog.

Parnell also may choose to trim the record $3 billion capital budget based on concerns about overspending. Last week he issued a statement urging fiscal restrain from legislators when the budget reached the $2.8 billion mark.

This week a group of Alaskan Pebble Mine opponents traveled to London to attend the annual meeting of Anglo American, which makes up half of Pebble Partnership. The other half is British Columbia-based Northern Dynasty Minerals.

Mirror writer Sam Friedman can be reached via e-mail at sfriedman@kodiakdailymirror.com.