Spring Creek Mine Victory

Spring Creek Mine Expansion Overturned

by Derf Johnson & Katy Spence

The largest coal mine in Montana, and one of the largest in the U.S., must evaluate and account for its contribution to climate change caused by the combustion of its coal. In Feb. 2021, in a major victory in the fight against fossil fuels, a federal district court judge in Billings overturned the permitting and environmental analysis of a massive expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in southeastern Montana.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Watters ruled that the federal Office of Surface Mining failed to evaluate the pollution resulting from the burning of the coal taken from the mine expansion, including CO2 emissions and toxic air pollutants such as mercury. Watters gave the agency 240 days to complete a “corrective” analysis and an updated environmental assessment. This victory is an important step in implementing an orderly transition from fossil fuels to clean energy and in accounting for the true costs associated with mining and burning coal.

At its peak, the Spring Creek Mine produced more than 20 million tons of coal annually, which fed coal-fired power plants around the world to create electricity. Burning coal produces enormous amounts of air pollution including acid rain-producing sulfur dioxide, lung-damaging particulate matter, and toxic mercury.

Recently, however, coal production at the Spring Creek Mine has been declining as coalburning plants are being replaced by cleaner and more affordable ways to produce electricity.

Spring Creek is not an anomaly.

The U.S.’s use of coal has been rapidly declining for the last decade as the country moves toward renewable energy and natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal use in the U.S. now accounts for approximately 20% of electricity production, down from a decade high of close to 50% in 2010.

Due to these poor market conditions and poor management, the previous owner of the Spring Creek Mine, Cloud Peak Energy, declared bankruptcy in 2019. The mine was sold to its current owner, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC). NTEC is already behind on the coal production taxes that it owes to Bighorn County (where it operates), which doesn’t bode well for the future of the already beleaguered mine. NTEC is now pushing for legislation to delay its tax payments (SB 154, which MEIC opposes).

Regardless, coal is the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive form of energy production, so the ruling by Judge Watters is a welcome reprieve from the Trump Era, and a new direction in holding this dying industry accountable. Ultimately, preventing this expansion, and others in Montana and across the West, will be a crucial win for public health and a lifesustaining climate. Judge Watters has set an important precedent that the government, and the coal industry, ignore at their own peril.

With the Biden Administration prioritizing a thoughtful transition away from fossil fuels, MEIC is confident that this victory is the first of many more to come. This legal victory was brought about due to the efforts of Shiloh Hernandez of the Western Environmental Law Center, who spent countless hours pushing this case forward.