By now you know that Arch Coal declared bankruptcy. We all knew it was coming. At first I didn’t think there was much to say about it beyond what the news articles were reporting but then I read Tom Lutey’s recent story in the Gazette and I think it is worth addressing the comments by John Tubbs, the director of Montana’s Department of Natural Resources (DNRC). Tubbs told Lutey that it was unlikely that Arch Coal would let Otter Creek collapse given the amount of money they had invested…

“If there is any hope for the world at all, it does not live in climate change conference rooms or in cities with tall buildings. It lives low down on the ground, with its arm around the people who go to battle everyday to protect their forests, their mountains and their rivers because they know that the forests, their mountains and their rivers protect them. ” – Arundhati Roy. On Monday, I sat on the bench just outside the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council chambers. At 12:24 my friend…

Arch Coal lost nearly 90% of its stock price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the first eight months of this year. In a last ditch effort to prevent their stock from being delisted from the NYSE, on August 4, 2015, Arch Coal initiated a one-for-ten reverse stock split to increase the market price per share of their common stock. Delisting procedures are initiated when a stock price trades under $1.00/share for over 30 consecutive trading days. To stay listed with the NYSE, a company is required to maintain certain…

On December 5, 2014 the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) sent Arch Coal a deficiency notice on their air quality permit application for the proposed Otter Creek coal mine. Arch Coal submitted an air quality permit application to DEQ on November 6, 2014. I don’t spend much time with air quality permits so I checked with some folks that do and apparently it is quite common for mining companies to receive deficiency notices on their air quality permit applications and to go back and forth with the permitting…

Here is a quick update for folks following the proposed Otter Creek mine. (#1 is background for #2 and #3, #4 is just common sense). 1. In 2012, Arch Coal submitted an application to acquire a permit from the state of Montana to mine coal in the Otter Creek Valley, a couple years after they leased the coal tracts. In bureaucratic speak, what they submitted is called a “permit application.” It was a shit permit application. Arch Coal left out entire sections, had poor baseline data and did not come…

In 2010, Arch Coal leased the Otter Creek coal tracts from the state of Montana. If you are interested in how the proposed Otter Creek mine came to be please read my short Otter Creek play that I wrote,”Once Upon A Mine”. There is supposed to be a part II but I’m having a hard time making it funny since whole debacle is so goddamned depressing. However, I am not writing today to talk about the leasing or the corporate pandering by our elected officials or the lack of vision for…

I woke up this morning to a phone call from a friend in southeastern Montana. “Did you read the Billings Gazette this morning?” “Not yet, why?” “Arch Coal just lost their ass.” What he was referring to was today’s headline in the Billings Gazette, Arch Coal writes DKRW Advanced Fuels’ coal gasification project as a $57.7 million loss. The coal to liquids project they proposed in Medicine Bow, Wyoming was a speculative venture (at best) that would have bilked taxpayers out of billions of dollars in public loan guarantees….

Imagine.  Today you receive a manila envelope in the mail. It has an aerial map of your house. The map shows an orange railroad track right going directly through your driveway. A letter is included with the map. It says you have to allow the railroad company, owned by Arch Coal and BNSF, on to your land so it can conduct engineering and environmental surveys. It also threatens you with eminent domain. What would you do?  I’m pretty sure you’d fight like hell.  ************* On April 18, 2013,…