GILLETTE — Maybe employment is down at the second largest mine in the Powder River Basin. The slightly empty parking lot seems to be the only explanation in the early afternoon.
On Tuesday, just south of the city limits of the Energy Capital of the Nation along South Douglas Highway, the parking lot behind Legends Lounge was about three-quarters full. The lot is where many coal miners park their cars and climb into a bus for a ride south to the Black Thunder coal mine for their 12-hour shifts.
Bartenders and others at the lounge say the lot had been filled to the gills in previous times. The lot handles roughly 150-plus cars where miners leave them to save on gas for the 50-mile one-way trip before dawn, then return 12 hours later where some grab a beer and bite to eat at the lounge.
The Black Thunder mine, which has parking signs plastered all over the lot behind Legends, is owned by Arch Resources Inc. and has issued a warning in the past month of possible layoffs.
These are tough times at one of the Powder River Basin’s largest coal mines and for others who are feeling the pinch from unrelenting bad news hitting their pocketbooks. People who work as coal miners are beginning to see things freeze up.
Steve Gray, who is an equipment operator driving road graders at Black Thunder, said train trips in and out of the surface mining area have dropped by half to 14 or 15 daily since the beginning of the year. That drop off somewhat reflects the 21% drop in coal production seen in the first three months of 2024 versus the same period in 2023, according to data provided by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA.
The trends are disturbing.
Declining Production
Black Thunder produced 11.2 million tons of coal in the first three months, down from 15.6 million tons in the same year-ago period. Over the same period, the mine employed 1,016 in the first quarter, down about 15 workers from the last quarter of 2023.
The data doesn’t reflect trends in production or employment since the end of March.
“We did some furloughs and cut overtime,” the 59-year-old Gray told Cowboy State Daily at a morning coffee at the Sundance restaurant in town. “How do they expect to supply power for everyone if they stop producing coal?”
Nervousness pervades over the coal industry’s nearly 4,000 workers in the PRB.
It’s not an unfamiliar feeling for these workers who have experienced other boom-and-bust cycles in the PBR mining community over the years.
Many people like Gray are tightening up their spending habits, delaying major purchases of homes and trucks. Others uneasily are watching a flurry of small business closures in Gillette.
“I’ve been in retail for a long time, and consumers are worried about losing their jobs,” said Dave Lueras, who was the owner of Action Lock and Key along East 4th Street before retiring and turning it over to his children to run.
Spending Slowdown
“People are not spending money like they did,” Lueras said.
If this sounds like a broken record, well it is.
Northeast Wyoming’s energy-rich PRB has been roiled by ominous news in recent months.
These headlines include a mild winter that translates into less coal burning in power plants, low natural gas prices that are competing for coal as a commodity, retirement of coal-fired power units and growing stockpiles of coal in storage heaps located next to electricity generating stations.
But the biggest ominous cloud hanging over PRB is a new policy being offered up by the federal government that would end coal mine leases on public lands owned by the Bureau of Land Management.
It’s considered a death blow for PRB’s coal industry.
Some miners interviewed Tuesday said that they’re seeing temporary contract workers let go, positions going unfilled, overtime getting cut and workers taking time off without any questions asked.
Others, like Gray, are seeing long trains with hoppers filled to the brim with coal running in and out of the Powder River Basin’s dozen coal mines in the region beginning to taper off to about half from a year ago.
Jim Welsh, who just finished eating breakfast at Mona’s Café, worked with a Kennecott Energy coal mine for 30 years before retiring in 2020. “It’s kind of scary,” said Welsh of the federal government’s plan to end coal leasing on public lands by 2041. “The coal industry has put a lot of money into Gillette.” (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
Jo Keil, a waitress at the Lariet Café in Gillette, that she’s receiving fewer tips as a waitress because of tightening up of spending in town due to unsettling times in the Powder River Basin. “Everything’s so expensive,” she said. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
From left, Campbell County Board of Commissioners Del Shelstad, Bob Jordan and Jim Ford listen intently to testimony delivered by members of the public regarding their opposition to a proposed Bureau of Land Management rule that would end coal mining on public lands by 2041. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
About 30 local residents, including Gillette Mayor Shay Lundvall, far left front, supported efforts to oppose a proposed Bureau of Land Management rule that would end coal mining on public lands by 2041. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
A parking lot located behind the Legends Lounge dedicated to workers of the Arch Resources' Black Thunder coal mine, where they can carpool with others or take a ride to the mining operation about 50 miles to the south of Gillette. On mid-day Tuesday, the lot was about three-quarter full, not nearly as packed in previous years. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Not Going To Just Take It
On Tuesday, the Gillette County Board of Commissioners met to hear the public’s gripes about the BLM’s new policy to end future coal leasing in the Powder River Basin by 2041.
It went about as expected. No coal producers showed up or even representatives from the BLM’s Buffalo field office, where the new policy is to be implemented. No emails were returned requesting comment.
The BLM office, which is located in the Bighorn Mountains about an hour’s drive to the west of Gillette, is the biggest landholder in the area.
The office manages 780,000 acres of public land and has its fingers on more than 4.7 million acres of minerals underground in Campbell, Johnson and Sheridan counties in northern Wyoming.
But with coal leasing on public lands ending by the early 2040s, the tension at the commission meeting was thick in the air for an estimated 30 people who showed up in the middle of a work day to protest the BLM’s gambit to end coal mining.
“People are fed up with government overreach,” said Del Shelstad, chairman of the Campbell County Commissioners.
“The nervousness that people are feeling is showing up with people not buying homes, with some holding off on buying a vehicle. This affects our economy,” he told Cowboy State Daily after the hearing.
“It’s headline-grabbing but not a new event,” said Commissioner Jim Ford of the BLM policy. “It’s a saga that’s been underway for a long time.”
The commissioners plan to file a formal protest with the BLM over its proposal to end coal leasing. As part of this process, the board is collecting signatures on an online petition that will be submitted along with a lengthy comment letter that they’re currently drafting in a missive to be sent to the BLM later this month.
As of Tuesday morning, the board had collected about 350 signatures on the petition, according to Campbell County spokeswoman Leslie Perkins.
Gillette Mayor Shay Lundvall and Wyoming lawmakers Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, who also is chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Chris Knapp, R-Gillette, and Rep. Abbie Angelos, R-Gillette, also testified at the hearing in opposition to the BLM rule.
Bear said that the plan ignores basic “science, economics and common sense.”
Others at the hearing summarized their objections similarly.
“We have to stop the Biden administration from destroying our state,” resident George Dunlap complained to the commissioners.
“In a previous downturn, I watched a significant number of my congregation leave,” said Ed Sisti, pastor of Open Door Church in Gillette. “It was because of a downturn in the economy. I watched this once because jobs disappeared.”
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
