Feds Look to Expand Montana’s Largest Coal Mine

The 19-million-ton expansion is estimated to extend Spring Creek Mine’s operational life by five years

By Amanda Eggert for Montana Free Press

Logo for Navajo Transitional Energy Company (screenshot from website)

Montana’s largest coal mine is set for an expansion that could increase its coal production by 19 million tons.

The federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement announced last week that it has prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) that allows the expansion that the owners of the Spring Creek Mine, located near Decker, first requested nearly two decades ago.

If the U.S. Interior Department’s assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management ultimately approves the expansion, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company will gain access to a one-to-two-year supply of federally owned coal.

The 237-page EIS is the result of a multi-year, multi-part lawsuit between the federal government and environmental groups. In 2017, WildEarth Guardians and Montana Environmental Information Center sued the federal government for failing to consider climate and air quality impacts associated with the expansion, which was first approved by the Bureau of Land Management a decade prior.

Burning coal to produce electricity is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions in Montana, though those emissions have been declining as energy investors and power plant owners pursue other energy sources.

In recent years, the Spring Creek Mine has produced between 10 and 15 million tons of coal annually. Credit: Courtesy Montana Department of Environmental Quality

In their 2017 lawsuit, the groups charged that the expansion would release tens of millions of tons of atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide, along with tens of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain.

In 2021, a federal judge sided with the plaintiffs and directed the federal government to prepare an EIS detailing the environmental impacts of expanding the mine.

The EIS that the Interior Department released Friday weighs the impacts of a more modest, 90-acre expansion than the one that Spring Creek Coal, LLC, first sought. The company originally estimated that expanding the mine’s permitted footprint by 1,100 acres would establish access to approximately 270 million tons of coal, enough to extend mining operations for a little more than five years.

The alternative preferred by federal regulators — the 90-acre, 19-million-tons-of-coal scenario — will release about 29 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. According to the EIS, that is roughly equal to the emissions of 1.2 million gasoline-powered cars driven over five years.

Shiloh Hernandez, who represented the environmental groups in the lawsuit, told Montana Free Press Monday that the EIS “is well overdue.”

“This mine has been operating since the 1970s and here, half a century later, we finally have an EIS for this mine, which is one of the largest coal strip mines in the country,” Hernandez said.

The Navajo Transitional Energy Company did not return MTFP’s request for comment on the announcement Monday.

Spring Creek is the largest coal mine in Montana and one of the largest in the country. In 2023, it produced more than 12 million tons of coal, making it the eighth-largest coal mine nationally. According to the Montana Chamber of Commerce, the mine employs about 265 people.

Spring Creek coal is shipped to both domestic and international purchasers, though domestic coal demand is declining.