WildEarth Guardians

Friday, May 6, 2016
Colorado Coal Mine Expansion Overturned

U.S. Interior Department Finds Coal Lease Illegally Approved, Rejection Comes Amid Coal Reforms
Contact: Jeremy Nichols (303) 437-7663 jnichols@wildearthguardians.org

Denver—Millions of tons of publicly owned coal are slated to remain in the ground as a ruling today found a western Colorado coal mine expansion was illegally approved.

“This is a win for our climate and for clean energy,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program Director.  “It also bolsters the need for the Interior Department to move forward on bold reforms to fix the way our coal is managed in the American West and help our nation move away from fossil fuels.”

Responding to an appeal filed by WildEarth Guardians in 2014, the U.S. Interior Board of Land Appeals found that an unauthorized Bureau of Land Management official improperly approved a coal lease that would expand the Bowie No. 2 mine in Colorado’s North Fork Valley.

The Board “set aside” the leasing decision and found that it “has no legal effect.” 

The lease, called “Spruce Stomp,” would have allowed Kentucky-based Bowie Resources to expand its coal mine by nearly 2,000 acres underneath the Grand Mesa outside of Paonia, Colorado.  The eight million ton coal lease would have boosted Bowie’s plan to export coal from its mine through ports in the Bay Area of California. 

According to Bowie Resources, the company has agreements with ports in California to export up to 2.3 million tons of coal annually.  The company is seeking to expand its export capabilities by using money from the State of Utah to fund the development of a new coal export terminal.

The lease rejection comes as the Interior Department launched a historic reform effort around publicly owned coal management. The reform push comes amid growing controversy over the climate impacts of the federal coal program and signs that taxpayers are extensively subsidizing coal production in the western U.S.

The Secretary of the Interior imposed a moratorium on new coal leasing and initiated a programmatic environmental review of the federal coal program.

As part of its reform push, the Interior Department is holding public hearings in western states in May and June.  A meeting is scheduled for Grand Junction, Colorado on June 23.

Since 2014, the Bowie No. 2 mine has slowed production and is now idled, although the company has indicated it is assessing market conditions to determine whether production should restart.

Today’s ruling by the Interior Board of Land Appeals means the Spruce Stomp coal lease must be canceled and that Bowie Resources is now prohibited from mining the lease.