Environmental group sues over West Elk Mine expansion

Methane venting in question

A Denver-based environmental group is suing two federal agencies over their approval of an expansion plan at the West Elk Mine, which the environmentalists say would make the mine one of the state’s largest greenhouse gas producers.

Wildearth Guardians, a Denver-based not-for-profit corporation, says the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior approved a mine expansion plan that would require 168 drainage wells to vent as much as seven million cubic feet of methane into the atmosphere every day.
That much methane would be enough to heat nearly 40,000 homes, a city twice the size of Grand Junction, for the 12-year life of the mine. As a commodity, the gas could be worth as much as $250 million on today’s market, according to the lawsuit.
For the mine operators, collecting the gas for use at the mine or for market would make a lot of sense in a number of areas—but that isn’t an option.
“Venting the methane that is above a coal seam is legal as part of the mining process. But it needs to be permitted and leased to collect and use for electricity production,” says Doug Nolte, manager of engineering and environmental affairs for the Mountain Coal Company, LLC, which owns the West Elk Mine.
Also, there is no state or federal law that prohibits the release of methane into the atmosphere, despite Gov. Ritter’s Colorado Climate Action Plan that sets out to reduce the state’s emission of greenhouse gases by 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
“There are no legal mechanisms which can be used to require capturing of the methane gas and that means that any effort to put the gas to beneficial use will be strictly voluntary,” says Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forest supervisor Charlie Richmond.
In addition, Richmond says, “There is the issue of gas ownership; either the gas under the coal mine isn’t under lease, or the gas is under lease to a separate company. For the situation where there is no gas lease [as is the case with the West Elk Mine], the GMUG is working to rectify the problem by forwarding gas lease parcel nominations to the BLM.”
The West Elk Mine was nominated for the necessary gas leases in 2001, says Nolte, but no decision has been made.
Instead of collecting the gas, venting is done to protect mine workers from exposure to the gas, which can be lethal. It is also necessary to remove the highly combustible gas from the mineshaft to avoid ignition.
“We have to vent methane from the mine, for the safety of the miners,” says Nolte. “The stipulations are geared toward the safety of the workers in the mine.”
According to Richmond, the Environmental Protection Agency has approached the Mining Safety and Health Administration about the possibility of burning off, or flaring, the vented methane, but that might only be an option in the future after several years of testing shows it to be a safe alternative.
In their lawsuit, Wildearth Guardians point out that flaring is successfully and safely used throughout Europe and Australia.
Methane, which is the most common source of natural gas, can hold more than 20 times as much heat as carbon dioxide and according to the lawsuit, neither agency explored options to capture the gas for use at the mine or for market, or to burn the gas, which can reduce its capacity to hold heat by 90 percent.
In 2007, the EPA expressed some concern that, of underground coal mines, the West Elk Mine is the fourth largest emitter of methane in the country and one of 12 in the United States that doesn’t collect vented methane.
In addition to the release of methane into the atmosphere, in the suit Wildearth Guardians takes issue with surface disturbances associated with the construction and maintenance of 146 well pads and 23 miles of new road that would need to be constructed in order for the mine expansion to occur as planned.
“Many people assume that the Forest Service has control of mining operations that are located on the National Forest,” says GMUG’s Richmond. “This isn’t the case. In reality, the Forest Service is a partner with [several federal agencies including the Bureau of Land Management] in managing federal coal resources.”