Montana’s largest coal mine is poised for expansion, potentially boosting its coal production by 19 million tons.
The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement revealed last week that it has prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) to allow this expansion. The owners of the Spring Creek Mine, located near Decker, requested the expansion nearly two decades ago.
If the U.S. Interior Department’s Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management approves the plan, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company will be granted access to a one-to-two-year supply of coal from federal land.
The 237-page EIS is a result of a lengthy legal battle between the federal government and environmental groups. In 2017, WildEarth Guardians and the Montana Environmental Information Center filed a lawsuit accusing the federal government of neglecting to consider climate and air quality impacts associated with the expansion. This expansion had already been approved by the Bureau of Land Management a decade earlier.
Burning coal for electricity is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in Montana, although these emissions have been decreasing as energy investors and power plant owners shift to other energy sources. In their lawsuit, the environmental groups argued that the expansion would release millions of tons of carbon dioxide, contributing to global warming, as well as large amounts of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain.
In 2021, a federal judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the federal government to prepare an EIS addressing the environmental impacts of the mine’s expansion.
The newly released EIS evaluates the effects of a smaller, 90-acre expansion, compared to the larger expansion originally requested by Spring Creek Coal, LLC. The company had planned to expand the mine by 1,100 acres, which would have granted access to around 270 million tons of coal, extending mining operations for more than five years. Instead, the preferred alternative in the EIS involves a 90-acre expansion that would yield 19 million tons of coal and release about 29 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent—roughly the same as the emissions from 1.2 million gasoline-powered cars over five years.
Shiloh Hernandez, an attorney for the environmental groups, told Montana Free Press that the EIS was “well overdue.”
“This mine has been operating since the 1970s, and now, nearly half a century later, we finally have an EIS for one of the largest coal strip mines in the country,” Hernandez said.
The Navajo Transitional Energy Company did not respond to requests for comment on the announcement.
Spring Creek Mine is the largest coal mine in Montana and ranks among the largest in the United States. In 2023, it produced over 12 million tons of coal, making it the eighth-largest coal mine in the country. The Montana Chamber of Commerce reports that the mine employs around 265 people.
Spring Creek coal is sold to both domestic and international buyers, although demand for coal in the U.S. is declining.
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