Court rules mine construction to halt

Mountain Coal expansion in Sunset Roadless area stalled

[ By Katherine Nettles ]

Conservation groups that have challenged a mine expansion and asked for an expedited decision are celebrating a court ruling that the mine halt its current efforts to expand in the Gunnison National Forest while all parties await final resolution to the matter.

On Thursday, October 29, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked further construction for Mountain Coal, which operates in the Sunset Roadless Area in the West Elk Mountains and has been building a new road there since June of this year.

The U.S. Forest Service’s 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule prohibits road construction in the Sunset Roadless area, but the Forest Service granted an exception for the North Fork Coal Mining Area, which allowed road building related to coal mining. Gunnison-based High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA), along with WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Wilderness Workshop, filed a lawsuit to protest the “North Fork Exception” as unlawful, and won in both district court and again in appeals court in March 2020. This decision meant the mine could not expand.

During the period between the appeals court ruling this spring and the district court issuing a cessation order in June 2020, Mountain Coal Company began clearing a road nearly a mile long through the forest and scraped two drilling pads there. The U.S. Forest Service did not stop or oppose this construction on its land, and in September the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety dealt the conservation groups a blow by upholding the mine’s right to continue construction since the U.S. Forest Service wrote a letter of support.

HCCA and the other plaintiffs in the case then filed a motion that the district court enforce a remedy or, as HCCA public lands director Matt Reed phrased it, “Preclude any future road building there, in perpetuity.”

Reed further explained, “HCCA and our partners asked the court to order the Forest Service to immediately withdraw its consent to any surface disturbing activities in the North Fork Coal Mining Exception area, and to order that Mountain Coal Company comply with the vacatur order by refraining from engaging in surface-disturbing activities.” The motion was denied on October 2, but is now in appeals court awaiting a final decision.

Meanwhile, HCCA requested the 10th Circuit consider an expedited decision on whether the mine should be allowed to continue construction when the North Fork Exception has been ruled unlawful and its decision as to enforcing a remedy is pending. That came through in HCCA’s favor on Thursday.

“Mountain Coal’s blatant disregard for past judicial decisions has resulted in damage and destruction to one of the wildest roadless landscapes in Colorado,” said Reed in a statement released that same day. “We are pleased that the 10th Circuit today blocked further drilling pad development in the Sunset Roadless Area, and we are eager to see this spectacular landscape protected for future generations rather than sacrificed for dirty coal extraction.”

Reed said it was likely to be several months before a final decision on the appeals comes in from the 10th Circuit, but said that last week’s decision in conjunction with winter approaching renders it unlikely that any further surface disturbance will happen this year within the Roadless area.

Mountain Coal Company could not be reached for comment.