Subsidence cracks located within 2 Lazy 2 Ranch, in the Bull Mountains near
Roundup pictured Nov. 4, 2022. (Boyd Charter drone image)
Conservation groups sent a citizen complaint last week to state and federal agencies alleging that Signal Peak Energy (SPE), which runs the Bull Mountain Coal Mine near Roundup, is not complying with parts of its mining permit. The complaint alleges SPE is causing “subsidence cracks,” which have damaged land in and around SPE’s permit area. It further alleges that SPE is “failing to comply with permit requirements to reclaim lands affected by this subsidence, including failures to protect topsoil and vegetation.”
“These treacherous cracks on my land are an inevitable part of underground mining, and they risk serious injury to people, cattle, wildlife, and even wildland firefighters, who were just here in the Bulls only a couple of years back,” wrote Steve Charter, a rancher and member of Northern Plains Resource Council (NPRC), in a news release dated October 16.
Charter also claims Signal Peak is not performing the “timely repairs” to the land as they are required to do, and feels like Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is refusing to enforce said requirement.
The conservation groups, including Earthjustice, Western Environmental Law Center, Montana Environmental Information Center, and NPRC, asked that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) perform a federal inspection of the Bull Mountain mine. Or, the groups wish for the DEQ to grant citizen inspections within 10 days. Following the inspection, the groups asked OSMRE “to issue a cessation order to Signal Peak requiring the company halt operations at the Bull Mountains Mine until it complies with the law.”
Signal Peak President and CEO, Parker J. Phipps said in a written statement, “This citizens’ complaint filed by certain environmental groups represents the most recent attempt to impede DEQ’s… important oversight work and to interfere with Signal Peak’s business.”
Phipps continued, “Indeed, four separate complaints over the past year have not resulted in a single notice of violation, fine, or cessation order directed to Signal Peak. To the contrary, DEQ has repeatedly held that these complaints are ‘procedurally inappropriate’ and lack any legitimate factual support, and that Signal Peak has acted lawfully and in strict compliance with its mining permits and associated environmental obligations.”
The DEQ did, in fact, respond to a previous complaint in January 2023, calling it “a collateral attack on SPE and DEQ as to issues already … Read rest of the story here.
