The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
USFS provided a letter of support for coal company; conservationists request expedited emergency motion
By Katherine Nettles
An ongoing dispute over road construction and coal mine expansion in areas of the Gunnison National Forest has taken a turn favoring the coal mine’s interests, at least temporarily.
The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS) modified a cessation order last week to allow the West Elk Coal Mine to resume bulldozing the forest and constructing and expanding drill pads within the Sunset Roadless area.
In June, Mountain Coal Company cleared a nearly mile-long road through aspen groves and scraped two one-acre drilling pads to expand the mine. The state (DRMS) ordered the company to stop the work on June 17 after determining that the mine had not maintained its legal right to enter the Sunset Roadless Area.
The case between Mountain Coal Company and Gunnison County-based High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA) is still awaiting its day in federal court, but in the meantime DRMS modified its cessation order on September 17, to allow the coal mine to continue its development there.
HCCA responded the next day, September 18, by filing a motion for expedited consideration of their emergency motion urging a federal court to halt further construction in the Roadless area permanently and requiring the coal mine to mitigate the environmental impacts of its efforts. That motion is still pending.
The area in question is part of the Gunnison National Forest within the North Fork of the Gunnison River watershed, in northwest Gunnison County. The Forest Service adopted the Colorado Roadless Rule in 2012, prohibiting road construction in designated areas, but granted an exception for the coal mining area development known as the “North Fork Exception.”
HCCA, together with WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Wilderness Workshop, filed a lawsuit in 2014 to protest the move, beginning several years of legal actions and alleging that the “North Fork Exception” was unlawful to begin with.
In 2017 the conservation groups again sued Mountain Coal Company for “illegal bulldozing and carving out drill pads” within the Sunset Roadless Area. In March 2020 the U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruled in favor of HCCA, maintaining that the U.S. Forest Service broke the law by opening thousands of acres of roadless forest in Gunnison County to future coal mining. However, Mountain Coal Company continued its development there this summer.
The Forest Service was informed of Mountain Coal’s plans and did not protest. “Satellite photos show that the coal company continued scraping and widening two drill pads even after the district court in June formalized the circuit court’s order. Construction was finally halted when the state issued a cessation order June 17, banning Mountain Coal from any surface-disturbing activities in the Roadless forest associated with the mine expansion,” according to HCCA.
DRMS cited in its modified cessation order a letter from the U.S. Forest Service stating that the coal mine’s actions were permitted on the federal lands.
In a press release from HCCA, the conservation group stated that this action from DRMS “likely means construction work can resume, despite a March court order banning road building in the Sunset Roadless area.”
“The unfortunate decision by the state effectively sanctions illegal road-building and bulldozing in some of the wildest public lands in Colorado,” said Matt Reed, public lands director for HCCA. “I am extremely concerned that it gives the green light to Mountain Coal Company and other polluters to ignore the law with impunity.”
“The modified order is based on a U.S. Forest Service letter saying Mountain Coal had a legal right of entry when it bulldozed the road and constructed two drill pads. That’s despite the March order from the U.S. Court of Appeals that banned road building. The state’s order allows Mountain Coal to use the illegal road and drill pads and bulldoze more drill pads from this road,” continues the HCCA press release.
“It’s outrageous that Colorado caved to the Forest Service’s endorsement of Mountain Coal’s sneaky, illegal bulldozing operation,” said Allison Melton, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The company ignored court orders, decimated a Roadless forest and then twisted the truth to justify it. Now the Forest Service and the state are rewarding this bad behavior and helping to destroy pristine national forest.”
The appeals court ruling that the Forest Service broke the law in approving the “North Fork Exception” sent the case back to the U.S. District Court with instructions to end the coal mine exception, which also means ending road construction, as HCCA noted.
Conservation groups are asking for expedited ruling on their emergency motion that was filed in the U.S. District Court in Denver to enforce the earlier ruling that banned construction.
“It’s beyond disappointing that Colorado is letting the coal industry run roughshod over the state’s treasured public lands,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “They’re rewarding a rogue coal company by sacrificing the state’s backcountry.”
Located in the West Elk Mountains between the towns of Paonia and Crested Butte, the West Elk mine is one of the largest coal mines in Colorado.
The Colorado Roadless rule protects more than four million acres of Roadless forests in Colorado from most road construction and commercial logging.
