Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) responded November 17 to a citizen complaint filed against Signal Peak Energy’s (SPE) Bull Mountain Mine last month, calling it “unsupported by the facts,” and chastising the complainants for their “repeated misuse of the citizen’s complaint process.”
On October 16, four groups — Earthjustice, Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC), Northern Plains Resource Council (NPRC), and Western Environmental Law — filed the complaint with federal agencies. The complaint alleged SPE was “failing to comply with permit requirements to reclaim lands affected by… subsidence, including failures to protect topsoil and vegetation.” It included photos from November 2022 of subsidence cracks on land owned by Steve Charter, a member of NPRC. It also alleged DEQ had “failed to issue notices of violation or cessation orders when citizens and inspections have identified these violations.”
Charter further claimed cattle have “likely” been injured by subsidence cracks, and that ranchers “have reported cattle breaking legs or injuring themselves with the probable cause being subsidence cracks.”
The complaint demanded that, “the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) perform a federal inspection of this mine, or alternatively, require DEQ to grant the requested citizen inspections within ten days.” After that, the complaint said OSMRE should order Signal Peak to immediately cease operations.
In a response dated Nov. 17, DEQ Mining Bureau Chief Dan Walsh wrote, “DEQ strongly disagrees that any… inspection is required or that a cessation order is appropriate.”
Walsh continued, “DEQ finds Complainants’ allegations unsupported by the facts, predicated on outdated and misleading photos, conclusory statements, its own prior unsupported citizen’s complaints, and omissions and misstatements of applicable law.”
Specifically, Walsh noted the photos of subsidence cracks used by the complainants “are not current and do not accurately reflect subsidence repair.” The allegation of cattle perhaps getting hurt by the cracks? The complainants provided “no documented proof to support these allegations.” And finally, the citizen complaint asserted that subsidence cracks pose “a danger to any wildland fire engines that respond to wildfires in the Bull Mountains.” But, according to DEQ records, the agency “has never received a complaint from any agency that subsidence cracks interfered with wildfire response.”
Moreover, regarding safety precautions, Walsh wrote, “When the longwall miner was underneath Fattig Creek Road in 2020 and again in 2021, inspectors routinely observed that all appropriate safety measures were taken, including signage and pilot cars hired by SPE to ensure safe travel over the road while it was subsiding.”
The environmental groups are holding firm to their allegations.
“All too often, the state agency that is charged with protecting water quality chooses to protect a mining company that has been polluting area waters for decades,” said Anne Hedges, director of policy for MEIC, on Monday.
“We are disappointed but, frankly not surprised that DEQ has again ignored the complaints of Bull Mountain residents whose land and water have been damaged by Signal Peak Energy,” said Tom Baratta, a Bull Mountain landowner and member of Northern Plains Resource Council, on Wednesday. “DEQ didn’t even have the courtesy to send their response to us. We remain deeply concerned when this state agency seems to prioritize the interests of a criminally convicted coal company currently on probation with the United States Department of Justice while dismissing the concerns of everyday Montanans who simply want to protect our land and livelihoods.”
Earthjustice and Western Environmental Law Center declined to comment on this story as of publication this week.
Editors Note: Click here to read the full 11 page DEQ response.
