Small coal mine big step for South Heart
Oct 17, 2008 - 04:05:15 CDT
By LAUREN DONOVAN
Bismarck Tribune
bismarcktribune.com
A long dry spell since state regulators saw an application for a new coal mine in North Dakota ended Wednesday.
South Heart Coal LLC, a subsidiary of Great Northern Power Development, filed for a permit to open a small mine two miles southwest of the community, with future plans for a much larger mine to feed a gasification plant.
The Public Service Commission will review the application and open it up for public comment in the next couple of months.
Great Northern's spokesman Rich Voss said this is a significant step for his company, which has been working for more than seven years to develop its coal resources in western North Dakota.
Voss said the big steps - an application for a full scale coal mine encompassing 17 sections of land and an air quality permit for what would be North Dakota's second coal-to-synthetic natural gas plant - will come next year.
Some local residents have joined in opposition to the industrial coal development planned for rural South Heart, where crops, not coal, have dominated the landscape.
Mary Hodell, a member of Neighbors United, said Wednesday's mine permit application is a disappointment, though an expected one.
"They're not digging yet," she said. "We still have an opportunity to fight it."
The application on the table would allow South Heart Coal to open a 275-acre mine for up to 300,000 tons of coal annually starting next summer.
The coal would be trucked over to another new venture in the rural South Heart neighborhood, a coal-drying plant that went into construction just this week.
GTL Energy, of Golden, Colo., is building the coal-drying facility and will dry South Heart coal and other coals to make them burn hotter and cleaner.
The company was in South Heart on Thursday morning to explain its plant to the public. The Stark County Commission said the company should hold a public informational meeting when it approved zoning for the $11 million project.
Great Northern plans to use coal-drying technology in its gasification plant, and Voss said opening a small mine will give GTL time to experiment with South Heart coal in the meantime.
Eventually, Great Northern plans to mine more than 4 million tons of coal and produce 100 million cubic feet of synthetic natural gas daily at South Heart by 2012.
Altogether, it expects to invest $1.4 billion in the two projects.
Voss said the gasification plant is still being designed and Great Northern has not yet hired a company to mine the coal under contract.
The industrial projects have been challenged through petition, in court and along administrative avenues by Neighbors United, the Badlands Area Resource Council and the Dakota Resource Council.
A challenge that Stark County failed its own comprehensive land use plan when it approved zoning for the coal mine is still in court. Another that asks federal mine regulators to stop the GTL project to see first if it, too, requires a mine permit has not been answered.
(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@;westriv.com. |
