COAL MINING
The Northwest get's its coal from the Powder River Basin. In fact, America gets 40% of its coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. In order to meet America's glutinous need for dirty energy each day over 80 coal trains
leave the Powder River Basin bound for power plants across the nation. Many of these trains stretch over a mile long and have over one hundred cars. These trains split ranches in half sometimes sparking grass fires.
And now the biggest coal companies in the world--Peabody Coal and Arch Coal want to ship millions of tons of coal through Washington to overseas markets in Asia.
The Powder River Basin represents one of the most threatened landscapes in the United States. For decades, it has been at the center of a conflict that pits rural farmers, ranchers, and American Indians against the American appetite for coal fired energy. North Central Power Study of 1971 named the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming as America's Sacrifice area. To meet the energy demands of the country, the entire Powder River Basin would be converted to a massive industrial complex of strip mines and power plants. The Powder River Basin includes the nation's largest surface mine, the Black Thunder Mine. Aquifers and rivers that irrigated crops and watered cattle would instead be used for power plants and dust suppression. Across the prairies and mountains of the Basin, communities were divided. The region, once home to numerous Native tribes and then family ranches, is now a patchwork of coal mines, power lines, rail lines, and oil and gas wells. Bison and cattle have been replaced by draglines and trucks displacing habitat 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
In the Montana portion of the Powder River Basin, there are four massive coal mines and four coal fired power plants. 31,000 acres of land have been mined in the state, yet only 86 acres have been fully reclaimed. Even after federal law was passed to ensure these mines were reclaimed, reclamation remains woefully behind. According to the Western Organization or Resource Council study "Undermined Promise" for every 555 acres disturbed for mining only one acre has been reclaimed. Coal is being mined faster than the land can be reclaimed.
Massive plumes of water contamination have spread out from Colstrip, which is partly owned by Portland General Electric and serves the Portland are, and most of the rivers in the area pose a mercury risk. Now in 2009, Montana's government is considering the construction of a two massive coal mines near the Northern Cheyenne reservation which would spur new coal development across the region. Near the hill where the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Custer met their end at the hands of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapahoe warriors, a Coal to Liquids facility is proposed that will require a new strip mine all of its own. Near the border of Wyoming, a new plant that would increase the quality of coal is proposed, claiming that it will turn Powder River Basin coal into coal more like Appalachian coal.
In Wyoming there are over 20 active coal mines. The coal mines Wyoming's Powder River Basin stretch for over 40 miles. Currently there is a proposal to strip mine over 20,000 more acres of the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, an area that has already been devastated by coal mining. Wildlife species such as the sage grouse are looking at becoming endangered as we eat up more of there dwindling habitat.
Many of the changes King Coal has made to the Powder River Basin go unseen. Coal has given us new ways to talk; prairie is now called overburden. We also have new terms, like ranch refugee. Coal mining in Powder River Country has forever changed the region, but now the future of the world depends on the outcomes in the Basin today. There is more at stake than ever before, as the richest coal reserves in the world could spell disaster for us all if they are mined and that coal burned. What is at stake is far more than the fate of this region because as goes the Powder River Basin, so goes the world.
The Powder River Basin is at risk of being lost forever. The water in the region is being depleted and the air is often thick with a brown haze. This is environmental destruction on a grand scale with impacts felt not only in the Powder River Basin but worldwide as climate change impacts Earth's precious balance. This nation must find a new direction in order to meet our energy needs.