WORC and Northern Plains Resource Council won an important victory when Federal Magistrate Carolyn Ostby supported their claims that the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement failed to consider the slow pace of reclamation at the Spring Creek Mine in Southeastern Montana.
Only 15% of the disturbed land at Spring Creek Mine has met even limited Montana bond release standards for regrading and replanting reclaimed land. None of this reclamation has received bond release that would indicate that viable plant communities have been established at the site.
In filing the case in 2014, Bull Mountain Rancher and Northern Plains Resource Council Chair Steve Charter noted: “Not one acre of land at this mine, which has been in operation since the early 1980s, has been fully and permanently reclaimed to meet the standards of the law. The OSM is obligated to open significant decisions like this to public comment and to accurately weigh the impacts of their permitting decisions. At the very least, they should be considering Cloud Peak’s failure to reclaim.”
On July 31, WORC and Northern Plains brought oral arguments on the issue of ongoing reclamation and public involvement in the federal mine plan approval process. Both cases were filed under public participation requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.
The coal in question is public coal, owned by the people of the United States, and leased to Cloud Peak Energy at bargain basement prices (18 cents/ton).