Free Republic

The North Fork Valley is now down to one operating coal mine after Friday’s announcement that the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia is being idled. Kentucky-based Bowie Resource Partners said in a news release that the action is occurring “as a result of continued market deterioration.” “The mine will remain idle while the market for Bowie No. 2 coal is evaluated,” the company said. The mine employs 108 full-time employees and one contractor. Bowie said it expects that 68 positions will be eliminated ... Just a few years ago, Bowie No. 2 employed more than 300 miners ... Another...

The downward slide continued for Colorado's coal industry in 2015, highlighted by production at Routt County's Twentymile Mine, which was down 38 percent. Statewide, production in Colorado was down 18.5 percent, with 18.7 million tons, the lowest amount of coal mined in 23 years. ... Colorado Mining Association President Stuart Sanderson said the drop in production is a result of lower demand, but it was not caused by natural market forces. What we are seeing is the direct result of government regulations that are designed to drive coal out of the energy mix," Sanderson said. He called Colorado's 2010 Clean...

Environmental organizations that offered more than 150,000 comments calling on the U.S. Forest Service to reject an agreement to allow additional mining in the North Fork area said the response demonstrated strong public opposition. More like "stuffing the ballot box," said an industry spokesman who noted that the environmental opposition would undermine a bargain fashioned over five years of talks. The Forest Service proposes reinstating the North Fork coal-mining exception to the Colorado Roadless Rule. The exception would allow Arch Coal to extend the West Elk Mine near Somerset below the roadless area. The roadless exemption would allow construction of...

A Colorado coal mine slated for closure due to a technicality has gotten a reprieve from the federal government in a move that could save hundreds of jobs. The Colowyo coal mine, which has provided hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars to the economy of the city of Craig and the northwestern region of the state since 1977 was in danger of being closed because a renewal permit drafted eight years ago did not take into account the mine's impact on climate change. An environmental group sued in a bid to invalidate the permit. A court-ordered review by the...

Gov. John Hickenlooper has pledged that Colorado will comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, but this effort to cut so-called “CO2 pollution” could come at a dear price to the state’s coal industry. ... Colorado is among the top states in coal production and consumption. In the year 2013, 64 percent of energy produced in Colorado came from coal, 20 percent from natural gas, and around 15 percent from various renewables including hydroelectric, biomass, solar and wind. The history of Colorado’s coal mining industry stretches over the past two centuries. Not to mention, coal jobs have a multiplier effect...

Craig community leaders hosted a meeting Thursday at Moffat County High School to provide a brief update on the situation at Colowyo Coal Mine, answer questions and facilitate public comment on the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s environmental assessment. Ray Beck, Craig mayor, opened the gathering by telling the audience about the economic significance of Colowyo mine’s 220 jobs to Craig and Northwest Colorado. “This is not the time to slow down,” Beck said, emphasizing the importance of community feedback on the development of the mine’s new environmental assessment. When the OMSRE’s recommendation to approve mining plans for...

Though a relatively small organization with only 26 people on staff, WildEarth Guardians’ litigious nature has established the environmental advocacy group as a dominant voice in the national debate about environmental policy. From 2010 to present, Guardians have initiated a total of 152 cases in federal district courts and 55 in the Circuit Court of Appeals for a total of 207 cases. In 2010 alone they filed 61 claims — an average of about one per week. However, Guardians’ pervasiveness in the courts has not gone without criticism. In a 2012 analysis of WildEarth Guardians' legal activity, the conservative group...

<p>DENVER — A spokesperson for the radical Santa Fe-based anti-coal group WildEarth Guardians showed no regard and no respect for the families and communities in Colorado who have everything to lose if the Colowyo mine is shut down.</p>

Most of the 1.5 million electricity consumers served by the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association probably don’t think about it. But when they wake up and flip on their light switches each morning, they can thank in significant part Tri-State’s Craig Station power plant in Moffat County, the second largest in Colorado. And that power plant can operate only thanks to hundreds of local workers digging in, not just figuratively at the plant itself, but literally at the two area surface mines — Colowyo and Trapper — that provide the plant’s coal. ... With 220 people working at Colowyo, some...

The community of Craig is holding its collective breath today, waiting on the feds to decide by midnight whether they will bother to challenge a court decision that threatens to shutter the Colowyo Mine. The Interior Department has gobbled up the entire period allotted to them to decide whether to appeal. We can only hope they have used this time wisely to decide in favor of the 200 plus workers whose jobs are on the line. And the lines in the proverbial sands have been clearly drawn. On one side is the radical environmental group WildEarth Guardians, who brought the...