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 read more
