(CNN) A mining company announced on Thursday that it is proceeding with plans to build an Alaskan gold and copper mine, which critics say threatens to pollute the home of the world's largest wild sockeye salmon population.

Northern Dynasty Minerals said it would file on Friday to begin the permit process to develop the controversial project, known as Pebble Mine.

The move was made possible after Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt removed special protections that were placed on the Bristol Bay watershed during the Obama administration. Canadian-based Northern Dynasty, parent company of Pebble Limited Partnership, acknowledged it was the withdrawal of the EPA's protection under the Clean Water Act that has allowed the mine permit process to move forward.

Initial plans for the gold and copper mine to be built in the Bristol Bay watershed were extremely controversial, resulting in a yearslong environmental study by the EPA.

In 2014, after three years of peer-reviewed study, the Obama administration's EPA invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act to place major restrictions on a mine in the Bristol Bay watershed. The decision came after scientists found that a mine "would result in complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources" in some areas of the bay. "All of these losses would be irreversible," the agency said.

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