Proposal: Move mining onto Crow Reservation

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Operators of a 34-year-old coal mine that fuels power plants in the Upper Midwest and pumps money into the Crow Tribe want to extend the mine’s life by moving operations southward, onto the Crow Indian Reservation.

Federal and state regulators have released a draft environmental study of the proposal for the Absaloka Mine, which now operates within a 15,000-acre area next to the reservation in southeastern Montana. Extending the surface mine’s boundary onto the reservation would add 3,660 acres.

According to a recent notice in the Federal Register, the proposal by a Westmoreland Coal Co. subsidiary would allow recovery of nearly 77 million tons of coal and would extend mining until about 2023.

“It’s a major expansion of the amount of coal they would be able to mine,” said Greg Hallsten of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

The department, along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, plans a public hearing on the proposal April 23 in Hardin. Mining in the new area requires approval of the two agencies and the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

While Westmoreland Resources owns the land where the mine now operates, the tribe owns the coal. Royalty and coal production taxes paid to the tribe in 2006 alone were $16.6 million, and the mine that year had a $13 million payroll supporting 161 people, many of whom have connections to the tribe, said Rick Stefanic, environmental supervisor for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Billings.

“Over oil and gas, or grazing or anything else, this (mine) makes money for the tribe,” Stefanic said.

The tribe also owns the coal on the reservation and mining there would send money into the Crow treasury.

Stefanic said he knows of no opposition to the mining proposal, which he described as “a continuation of the operation that has existed since 1974,” when mining began.

“The only controversy about this is that if you don’t continue to mine, those economic benefits dry up,” he said, adding mining could end within the next few years if work does not move onto the reservation.

Hallsten, with the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the new mine area would prolong current employment but would probably not generate new jobs.

Crow spokesman Darrin Old Coyote, the tribe’s vice secretary, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Westmoreland Vice President Douglas Kathol said extending the mine’s boundary onto the reservation would not be an expansion, but rather would be a way to continue operating when the present mine area no longer has enough coal to remove profitably.

Kathol, from Westmoreland’s office in Colorado Springs, Colo., met with Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Thursday to discuss potential development of a southeastern Montana plant that would convert coal to methane gas. Specific locations were not discussed, but Kathol acknowledged the site could be “somewhere near” the Crow Indian Reservation.

The potential project is unrelated to the Absaloka Mine proposal, Kathol said.

Schweitzer’s economic development specialist, Evan Barrett, said anyone interested in developing a major Montana energy project “comes in kicking tires as a starting point.” He said the group Thursday was credible.

“But it’s a long way from here to a project,” Barrett added.

The 7.3 million tons of coal produced by the Absaloka Mine last year ranked it second among the three Westmoreland coal mines in Montana. The company, the country’s ninth-largest coal producer, also operates a coal mine in North Dakota and one in Texas.

On the Net:

Westmoreland Coal Co.: www.westmoreland.com
Crow Tribe: www.crowtribe.com