Archive for the ‘Montana Coal/Coal Bed Methane’ Category

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Proposal would move mining onto Crow Reservation

Friday, April 4th, 2008
posted by admin

Operators of a 34-year-old coal mine that fuels power plants in the Upper Midwest and pumps money into the Crow Tribe want to extend the mine’s life by moving operations southward, onto the Crow Indian Reservation.

Federal and state regulators have released a draft environmental study of the proposal for the Absaloka Mine, which now operates within a 15,000-acre area next to the reservation in southeastern Montana. Extending the surface mine’s boundary onto the reservation would add 3,660 acres.

Read the story here:

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/04/04/state/100st_080404_mine.txt 

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Montgomery offers to sell SME power

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
posted by admin

Texas-based Montgomery Energy is pitching to sell electricity to Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission, which has run into financing and environmental challenges in building a coal-fired power plant to generate its own power.

Montgomery is planning to break ground by summer on a 275-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant north of Great Falls. It is power from that facility that Montgomery is offering to sell to SME.

Read the story here:

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080401/NEWS01/804010304


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North Fork has plenty of oil, gas leases in U.S.

Thursday, March 27th, 2008
posted by admin

The North Fork of the Flathead is blanketed by oil and gas leases and they’re not in Canada — they’re right here in Montana, just north of Columbia Falls on Flathead National Forest lands.

The leases date back to the 1970s and have been held in what amounts to legal limbo since 1985, when James R. Conner of Kalispell, members of the Montana Wildlife Federation and the Madison-Gallatin Alliance sued Robert Burford, director of the Bureau of Land Management.

In early 1981, the Forest Service issued environmental assessments recommending that 1.3 million acres of land in the Flathead and Gallatin National Forests be leased for oil and gas development.

Read the story here:

http://www.hungryhorsenews.com/articles/2008/03/20/news/news01.txt 

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Looking for oil alternatives

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
posted by admin

MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. — On a wind-swept air base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to a new and unlikely source: coal.

The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central Montana the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning synthetic fuel.

Read the story here:

http://www.trib.com/articles/2008/03/22/news/wyoming/3083865aead65ae187257413007fa108.txt

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Coal Train derails east of Bozeman

Sunday, March 16th, 2008
posted by admin

Twenty-five cars of a Montana Rail Link coal train derailed in a canyon five miles east of Bozeman on Saturday, spilling coal along the tracks and into nearby Rocky Creek.


 No one was injured in the wreck, which happened at 4:30 a.m. between the Trail Creek and Bear Canyon exits of Interstate 90, just west of Chestnut.

The 115-car train originated in Spring Creek, Wyo., and was headed west to Centralia, Wash., MRL spokeswoman Lynda Frost said Saturday. The accident forced MRL to close a heavily trafficked portion of the line for at least 24 hours, possibly longer.

Read the entire story here:

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2008/03/16/news/20derailment.txt 

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Judge’s ruling favors Montana’s Bull Mountain investors

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
posted by admin

A promise by owners of the Bull Mountain coal mine near Roundup to pay investors more than $17 million plus interest was breached and is enforceable, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby issued her findings in the complicated case after hearing arguments last week from lawyers for three East Coast companies representing more than 350 investors and for Bull Mountain Coal Properties Inc., Airlie Opportunity Master Fund Ltd. and related companies.

Read the entire story here:

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/03/11/news/state/24-bullmountain.txt 

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Feds approve water rules for gas drillers

Friday, March 7th, 2008
posted by admin

The federal government has approved strict new water-quality standards sought by Montana over fears that natural-gas drilling in neighboring Wyoming could pollute interstate rivers. Montana officials said Monday that the new rules would protect farmers from poor-quality water produced during exploration for coal-bed methane, a type of natural gas. But with a federal lawsuit over the issue still pending in Cheyenne, it was not immediately clear how far Montana could go in enforcing the standards. More than 20,000 coal-bed methane wells have been drilled in northern Wyoming over the past decade. The Associated Press

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USDA Rural Utilities program explains Highwood funding pullout

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
posted by admin

Top federal officials Monday said concerns over rising construction costs, legal challenges and other potential delays led them to pull the plug on financing for the proposed Highwood Generating Station east of Great Falls.

“The feasibility of it made us a little bit nervous,” Rural Utilities Service Administrator James Andrew said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C.

Between 2001 and 2007, the USDA’s Rural Utility Service was the primary means for rural electric cooperatives to finance new construction of transmission and generation. RUS provided $1.3 billion in funding for new coal-fired plants

But RUS said last month it had been directed by the federal Office of Management and Budget not to use any of its 2008 funding for loans to build base load electric generation.

Read the entire story here:

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080304/NEWS01/803040301

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EPA OKs Mont. water standards, but lawsuit still looms

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
posted by admin

BILLINGS, Mont. – The federal government has approved strict new water quality standards sought by Montana over fears that natural gas drilling in neighboring Wyoming could pollute interstate rivers.

Montana officials said Monday that the new rules would protect farmers from poor-quality water produced during exploration for coal-bed methane, a type of natural gas. Over the last decade, that industry has boomed just over the state line in Wyoming.

Read the entire story here:

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/03/04/ap-state-mt/d8v6abk00.txt 

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Montana’s Tester Calls for Better Oil & Gas Lease Process at Hunter & Angler Fundraiser

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
posted by admin

In the evening’s featured address, Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont., said that a number of “big issues,” including rampant oil and gas development, global climate change, and restricted public hunting and fishing access to private land all threaten Montana’s hunting and fishing heritage. He criticized the Bureau of Land Management for a lack of safeguards to protect wildlife species and their habitat in their procedures for leasing oil and gas development across the West.

Read the entire story here:

http://www.newwest.net/city/article/tester_calls_for_better_oil_gas_lease_procedures_at_hunter_angler_fundraise/C8/L8/

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