State Rep. Cyrus Western, R-Big Horn, is concerned about the future of a southern Montana coal mine that employs hundreds of Wyoming people that could have its available coal cut in half under a proposed revision to its environmental impact statement (EIS) by the federal government.
The mine is owned by Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC), which operates two other Wyoming coal mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) wants to modify the environmental impact statement for the company’s Spring Creek Mine in Decker, Montana, about 32 miles north of Sheridan. The coal mine has produced about 9.7 million tons of coal so far this year and employs 265 people, many who live in Wyoming.
The company’s current lease gives it access to 152 million tons of coal through 2038, and it wants to expand the mine’s footprint by 162.5 acres to get to an additional 40 million tons of coal. But NTEC says the federal EIS plans for the project would be very detrimental to its current and future operations.
There’s also a “no action” option that would allow NTEC to operate as it does now.
Future Options
The company has put forward its own EIS that would allow the mine to continue operating at full capacity in accordance with the life of the mine.
With the future of the mine and hundreds of local workers on the line, Western has sent a letter to the OSMRE urging the agency to support NTEC’s proposal, which the company sees as the only feasible option for running the mine going forward.
It also says it’s the only option that comports with existing federal and state regulatory permits.
“Notably, OSMRE fails to acknowledge that its so-called ‘alternatives’ are false options that are entirely unfeasible,” NTEC told Cowboy State Daily in a statement.
Moreover, the company says the mine wouldn’t be able to comply with its existing state environmental permits and federal royalty requirements if subjected to an OSMRE proposal “for a radical revision to SCM's existing mine plans that would reduce SCM's tonnage by half.”
“SCM supports America’s energy needs, the Wyoming and Montana economies, and supplies high-paying jobs in a rural area of the country,” the company said. “OSMRE’s selection of any other alternative other than the Proposed Action Alternative would drastically limit the ability to provide reliable, dispatchable energy and result in substantial losses of revenue to Montana, Wyoming, local communities and the United States of America.”
Life Expectancy
NTEC told Cowboy State Daily that OSMRE’s options would decrease the life expectancy of the Spring Creek Mine by 40% to 60%.
The mine now has a projected life through about 2038 with 152 million recoverable tons of coal now under lease. The company said it’s difficult to precisely forecast the financial burden that the other two options would make, but it would immediately reduce SCM’s recoverable tons by about 76.5 million tons.
Western said the current regulatory environment is difficult for coal mining in Wyoming and that it might dash any plans that NTEC has to expand mining operations into the Cowboy State, which would provide a significant boost to the state’s severance tax revenues.
He also worries that jobs could be cut as a result of the uncertainty caused by the two OSMRE proposals.
In his letter, Western says he’s concerned about Sheridan’s economic future without the mine.
“Mining provides well-paying, family-supporting jobs, especially in rural communities like Sheridan County, Wyoming,” Western writes. “These jobs are incredibly important to my community.”
Many of these jobs provide an exceptionally high entry-level wage that doesn’t require a college degree.
“There are very few industries where this is still possible, but in mining it is,” Western writes. “The regulatory hurdles that have slowed or stopped other mining projects pose a significant threat to our ability to sustain this economic engine.”
Public comment on the EIS proposals can be emailed to SCM_LBA1_EIS@wwcengineering.com through the end of the day Monday.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
