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The Pebble Partnership, which hopes to develop one of the world's largest gold mines in the world northwest of Iliamna, began releasing data this week from an ongoing meteorological study of the region.

A company press release Friday said the weather data, which covers the past three years, was the first installment in a series of reports on environmental, social and economic issues to be made public over the next 20 months.

Complete copies of the Pre-Permitting Environmental & Socio-Economic Data Report Series as each is issued will be available online at www.pebblepartnership.com, said the company, a partnership formed last year by Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. and Anglo-American PLC.

Since 2004, some $90 million has been invested in conducting a broad variety of studies in and around the project site, compiling what company officials were calling one of the most comprehensive pre-development environmental databases in the state's history.

"There's been a high degree of public interest in the work that our environmental and technical consultants have been performing in the project area over the past several years," said company CEO John Shively. "And while we have always been open and willing to share the results of our work with Alaskans, the (series) will formalize that process."

The information collected by 45 professional consultants hired to conduct the socio-economic and environmental studies will be used to help design the project, facilitate permitting, and establish a baseline for future monitoring, the company said.

The Pebble Partnership hired the Anchorage-based company Hoefler Consulting Group to manage its ongoing meteorological data collection program, which measures and records wind speed and direction, temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, evaporation, relative humidity and barometric pressure. Federal and state regulatory agencies require the submission of such data as part of an Environmental Baseline Document and project permit applications.

Sean Magee, director of public affairs, said nothing unexpected was found in the weather data, except some wind velocities.

"Most of the tech groups are familiar with average conditions around the state," he said. "The one most notable would be wind speeds around the deposit sites."

Indeed, the top wind gust registered at the site measured 137.1 miles per hour, according to the released data.

Hoefler maintains seven meteorological stations in the project area that meet federal monitoring standards, plus two others that do not. Data from those two stations would still be used during mine design and would be submitted to federal and state agencies and an appendix to the baseline document.

The meteorological data released Friday was compiled from three of the seven stations meeting federal standards. Data from other stations will be released at later dates. Approximately 3.5 million data points have been collected since meteorological monitoring began in 2005, the company said.

The results included the following:

* Max recorded hourly wind at Pebble site, 89.5 mph;

* Max recorded wind gust at Pebble site, 137.1 mph;

* Max recorded temperature at Pebble site, 73.4 degrees Fahrenheit;

* Minimum recorded temperature at Pebble site, -28.8 degrees Fahrenheit;

* Max recorded hourly wind speed at potential port site, 45.6 mph;

* Max recorded wind gust at port site, 88.4 mph;

* Max recorded temperature at port site, 77.3 degrees Fahrenheit; and

* Minimum recorded temperature at port site, -11.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Data to be released between now and December 2009 include, surface water hydrology, surficial geology, groundwater hydrology, trace elements (sediments and soils), groundwater and surface water quality, trace elements (vegetation and fish/mammal tissue), macro invertebrates and periphyton, marine habitats, marine near-shore fish and benthic invertebrates, noise, Lake Iliamna studies, visual resources, and terrestrial habitat and wildlife.

Others, such as reports on recreation, land and water use, wetlands, fish and aquatics, and socio-economic issues have not yet been scheduled, but will be released in 2009 and 2010, the company said.

Some information collected by the partnership will not be made public, Shively said. Information about subsistence and traditional knowledge and from cultural resources studies in and around the site is considered proprietary to local residents and communities.

Shively said making most of the collected data available years prior to permitting would lead to more informed public input and a better project and leave a positive legacy for the region and state.

The company said it also expects to begin sharing preliminary project design considerations with Alaskans in 2009.

Magee said the company had always intended to release its baseline data document with its permit applications and project plans.

"But there was a lot of calls for us to release data more quickly than that," he said Friday. "There are some who want to scrutinize our methodology and work."

He said the company expects there will be critics. But, he said, Alaskans have to be assured that they can have faith in the science and empirical data put in front of them.

Bob Shavelson, head of Cook Inletkeeper, which monitors the health of the Cook Inlet watershed, said there has been some frustration with an inability to see the information NDM and now the partnership were collecting. He called the partnership's decision to begin releasing the information a step forward, but he also said it remained to be seen whether the information would be the raw data or manipulated in some fashion.

After seeing the list of future releases, Shavelson said each category appeared to have important elements.

"Hydrology, obviously, is critical," he said, because it is such a complex area of study. "It will be important to understand what the water quality constituents are and how drilling and mining operations might affect water quality and quantity."

Hal Spence can be reached at hspence@ptialaska.net.