Edited sentence: Filed in Anchorage Superior Court on Wednesday, July 29, the suit asserts that the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) repeatedly violated Section VIII of the Alaska Constituion in granting permits for Pebble mine exploration without public notice and without analyzing whether exploration or the mine was in the public interest.If successful, the suit could require the state to prepare a new area plan, which could have ramifications for the future of state land management in the Bristol Bay drainage.Opponents of the Pebble Mine project filed two civil lawsuits in 2009, each targeting the State of Alaska's Department of Natural Resources.State DNR, asks the Alaska Superior Court (Third Judicial District) to toss out the state's 2005 Bristol Bay Area Plan and declare it unlawful.State of Alaska DNR, was brought by the Bristol Bay Native organization Nunamta Aulukestai and several individuals, including former Alaska First Lady Bella Hammond and Alaska Constitutional Convention Delegate Victor Fischer.The first, Nondalton Tribal Council et al v.The plan also covers about 7 million acres of state-owned tide and submerged lands.The plan applies to about 12 million acres of state-owned uplands and lands beneath rivers and lakes in the Bristol Bay drainages, including some near the proposed mine.The second civil suit, Nunamta Aulukestai et al v.The suit alleges that the 2005 plan, which replaced a 1984 version, drastically altered, without legal justification, the land-use designations, classifications and acreages assigned in the 1984 plan, and that the new plan fails to adequately protect subsistence, sport hunting and fishing, wildlife habitat and other renewable resources it purports to manage for public benefit