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Thursday, November 8, 2012
Forest Service OKs Coal Mine Expansion in Colorado Mountain Backcountry
Roadless area next to West Elk Wilderness would be decimated by bulldozing of more than 6 miles of road, and scraping of nearly 50 well pads
Contact: Jeremy Nichols (303) 573-4898 x 1303
Other Contacts:
Ted Zukoski,
Earthjustice, (303) 996-9622
Matt Reed, High Country Citizens’ Alliance, (970)
349-7104
Denver, CO — The U.S Forest Service yesterday ruled against conservation groups’
challenge to the Forest Service’s approval of a coal mine expansion within the
Sunset Roadless Area 10 miles east of Paonia, Colorado. The coal lease expansion, together with
loopholes built into the Colorado Roadless Rule last July, will allow corporate
giant Arch Coal to bulldoze 6.5 miles of road and 48 natural gas drilling pads through
1,700 acres – nearly three-square miles – of wild, roadless forest.
The appeal, filed in September
2012 with the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Regional Forester in Denver, sought
to overturn an August decision that affirming Arch Coal’s West Elk mine
expansion into roadless lands that provide habitat for lynx, black bear, elk
and goshawk. The conservation groups argued that the mine expansion violates
laws meant to protect wildlife, air quality, and forest lands, as well as the
Colorado Roadless Rule.
“Smokey Bear has
turned his back on Colorado’s natural, roadless lands,” said Ted Zukoski, staff attorney for Earthjustice, the public interest
environmental law firm representing the groups. “Instead, Smokey has literally paved the way for a coal
mega-corporation to destroy real bear habitat. The Sunset Roadless Area is a beautiful forest of aspen and
giant spruce, beaver lodges and meadows, a home for elk and hawks. This is a place the Forest Service should
be protecting for all Coloradoans, not sacrificing to appease special interests.”
“We will be examining all of our legal options going
forward,” Zukoski added.
The appeal was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the WildEarth
Guardians, High Country Citizens’ Alliance, Sierra Club, Rocky Mountain Wild
and Defenders of Wildlife. The conservation groups won an appeal in
February 2012, overturning the Forest Service’s initial approval of this
expansion, when the Forest Service concluded that it had failed to
explain weakened protections for lynx, bald eagles, and measures meant to
prevent landslides.
But when the Colorado Roadless
Rule was adopted
by the Obama administration in July in
place of the National Roadless Rule, Colorado became subject to lower
levels of protection for its roadless lands than for virtually all other
roadless forest lands in the nation.
“The loopholes built in to
the Colorado Rule leave 20,000 acres of pristine forest on Colorado’s West
Slope open to destruction by coal mines,” said Matt Reed, acting Director of
High Country Citizens’ Alliance based in Gunnison County. “With this decision, the Forest Service
rubber-stamped Arch Coal’s plan, and greenlighted use of these loopholes to
bulldoze through wild forests.”
The Forest Service decision to permit the mine expansion could
turn the Sunset Roadless Area, which is right next to the scenic West Elk
Wilderness, into an industrial zone of well pads and roads, with an average of
16 wells pads—and two miles of road—per square mile. In addition to paving the
way for bulldozing in the roadless area, the mine expansion decision allows
continued uncontrolled methane pollution from the West Elk coal mine, one of
the state’s single largest carbon polluters.
Although the West Elk coal mine is underground, safe mining there
requires that methane venting wells be drilled above the mine. The West Elk mine
spews millions of cubic feet of methane pollution every day. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with
21 times more heat trapping ability than carbon dioxide.
Forest Service and EPA data show the amount of methane
vented at West Elk could heat a city about the size of Grand Junction. But the Forest Service has refused to
require the mine to capture, burn, or reduce any of the mine’s methane
pollution.
“This is a lose-lose-lose proposition,” said Jeremy Nichols,
Climate and Energy Coordinator for WildEarth Guardians. “The public loses their mountain
backcountry, loses millions of dollars from wasted methane, and loses because
of more coal pollution. The Forest
Service needs to stand up to Big Coal, but now with a weaker Colorado Rule in
place, this kind of destructive expansion could unfortunately happen again and
again and again.”
Read the Forest Service's November 7, 2012 appeal decision
Read the conservation groups’ September 24, 2011 appeal
Read the Forest Service’s Aug.
10, 2012 mine expansion decision
Photos of the Sunset
Roadless Area (AKA the “Sunset Trail Roadless Areas”) are available here
Photos showing damage
from the West Elk mine’s existing methane wells are available here
Watch a video discussing the proposed mine expansion
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