The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made the right choice Friday when it approved a modified permit for the Kensington mine near Juneau.

The authorization seemed endangered by a request from the Environmental Protection Agency for yet another review of an alternative method for disposing of the mine’s tailings.

The Corps had approved a tailings permit in 2005, but environmental organizations challenged the decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. They lost. But when the Corps proposed to merely update the permit, the EPA said so much had changed that an entire new permit was necessary.

The Corps on Friday announced that it had issued the modified permit.

The permit allows Couer Alaska Inc., the mine’s owner, until July 31, 2014, to finish the authorized work.

This was a high profile decision, as every decision has been with this mine. The Corps said it received 8,500 comments on this permit authorization alone. That demonstrates the kind of scrutiny that major mines receive in the United States today.

The Kensington mine is especially controversial because Coeur’s plan is easy to vilify: It will fill a small lake with tailings. It didn’t matter to many people that this was the least environmentally disruptive choice — other than the choice not to build the mine at all.

That’s, in fact, the option that many in the opposition hoped would be chosen, either by the governmental agencies or by the company itself. The mine sits on a slope north of Berners Bay, a treasured place at the end of the road north of Juneau. The bay features easy access, beautiful views and abundant fish and wildlife, including an important annual herring spawn.

But the land on which the mine sits is not a national park. Couer holds the rights to minerals and has invested millions in developing the mine during the past few decades. It has a right to begin mining. The government has a responsibility to make sure the company does not damage Berners Bay, but it also has the responsibility to allow the company to proceed. Finally.

Coeur should be spared any further legal harassment so it can put people back to work and help shore up Southeast Alaska’s economy.