Editor's Note 03/31/2020 : This segment has been updated to clarify that NTEC is operating the mine, which Spring Creek Coal LLC, a subsidiary of the now-defunct Cloud Peak Energy, holds the permit to.
The state gave Montana’s most productive coal mine the go-ahead to expand its mining capacity, effectively extending the mine’s life to 2031.
The expansion continues despite the current owner’s debt to the state.
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality on Mar. 27 signed off on Navajo Transitional Energy Company’s plan to extract 72 million more tons of coal from the existing property at Spring Creek Mine in Big Horn County.
The expansion, which DEQ says the previous owner requested in 2013, means that the mine would disturb an added 977 acres within the existing permit boundary.
DEQ coal permit coordinator Bob Smith says the agency’s recent decision marks the completion of its environmental review.
“It’s mostly on what reclamation requirements would be,” says Smith.
Smith says the Spring Creek mine yields between 12 and 18 million tons of coal a year, so this permit revision would extend the mine’s life by about four years. He says the mine was responsible for roughly 33 percent of Montana’s total coal yield in 2019.
Last year, NTEC took over mine operation from Spring Creek Coal LLC, a subsidiary of the bankrupt Cloud Peak Energy, although Spring Creek Coal still holds the permit.
NTEC has not yet paid the reclamation bond Cloud Peak Energy left behind and the Montana Department of Revenue says NTEC still owes state taxes on the property.
DEQ’s decision comes after a question of tribal sovereign immunity caused the mine to close for a day while the state figured out if it could hold NTEC to state environemntal law.
