He said it would be “devastating” if a truck route were cut through this landscape

Understatement of the year. Development of a mine is hugely disruptive to the environment. This is an open pit mine, so their tailings would need to most likely be stored in a tailings storage facility (tailings pond). Water would most likely need to be treated in perpetuity. The article focuses on the road but not the other effects or components this seems short sighted in its scope.

They and others say the project will disrupt the migration path for one of the world’s largest caribou herds and pollute waterways crucial to salmon and sheefish, key to the subsistence diet for several local tribes.

These are not arbitrary impacts either. The mine and the road would definitely improve the local economy and access to the area, but at what cost?