Judge gives reprieve to Montana coal mine, averting layoffs
By Matthew Brown (foxbusiness.com) / Oct 31 2017
BILLINGS, Mont. – A central Montana coal mine averted dozens of imminent layoffs on Tuesday after a judge allowed work on an expansion of the mine to proceed while the government reconsiders the project’s contribution to climate change.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy allows Signal Peak Energy to remove up to 170,000 tons of coal from federal leases adjacent to its Bull Mountain Mine north of Billings.
The company is barred from selling or shipping the fuel until the federal government completes a new environmental study.
Signal Peak Energy had said 30 workers would be laid off by the end of October and up to 150 more in coming months as they ran out of work on existing leases. The expansion ultimately would give the company access to an estimated 176 million tons of coal that would take more than a decade to mine.
“We’re extremely pleased with the decision and also for our employees,” said Signal Peak spokesman Mike Dawson. “We will not have to lay people off.”
Molloy in August said the Interior Department had understated the climate change impacts of burning fuel from Bull Mountain and overstated its economic benefits.
Lawyers for the Trump administration had backed the company’s request in court to modify that earlier ruling.
Bull Mountain is one of the largest underground mines in the U.S. and ships about 95 percent of its fuel to Asia. Its owners are seeking to expand onto a 176-million ton coal reserve beneath land adjacent to the existing mine.
The Interior Department in 2015 determined that the expansion would not have a significant impact on the human environment. The agency said Bull Mountain’s customers would simply go somewhere else if the expansion were not approved, meaning there would be no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from burning the fuel if the expansion were denied.
That drew a lawsuit from the Western Environmental Law Center on behalf of the Montana Environmental Information Center and other groups. The environmentalists said the government had not looked closely enough at the effects of the expansion on waterways, air pollution and the health of people who live along the coal’s shipping routes.
A new environmental study of the mine already is under way, with public comments due by Nov. 20.
PB/TK – Nearly 180 jobs saved because someone couldn’t understand the over/under on climate change, but hey the coal company can still dig, they just cant sell it
