Colorado has missed by almost a year an air pollution permit deadline for the West Elk Mine near Paonia, a major Western Slope source of volatile organic compounds, n-hexane, methane and other pollutants, according to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of environmental groups. Arch Coal-owned West Elk applied for an air pollution permit in […]
Arch Coal
Posted inClimate, Energy, Environment, News
West Elk mine cannot leak methane, must flare the greenhouse gas, judge rules
The West Elk coal mine must keep flaring dangerous methane and seek state air pollution permits instead of leaking the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, in a consent decree hailed by environmental groups across Colorado. Though burning the methane on-site near Somerset creates CO2, it causes far less damage to the atmosphere than allowing raw […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Coal company says its freshly bulldozed road in roadless area near Paonia is legal
Mountain Coal Co. says the road it blazed into the Sunset Roadless Area below Kebler Pass is legal and that the Forest Service approved the construction. Conservation groups have attacked the Somerset-based mining company for building the road in early June after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on March 2 ruled the Forest […]
Posted inBusiness, Crime and Courts, Energy, Environment, News
A federal court ruled a coal company couldn’t build a road on public land near Paonia. The company did it anyway.
Mountain Coal Company has bulldozed about a mile of new road into the Gunnison National Forest’s Sunset Roadless Area barely two months after a federal court ruling that banned the mining company from building new roads or methane-venting drill sites in the protected forest near Paonia. A flurry of legal filings by conservation groups last […]