A Western Colorado community meets a coal boom halfway
Coal
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Seattle passes on greenhouse gases
WASHINGTON Politicos in Seattle, Wash., took Earth Day to heart. Mayor Paul Schell and the city council made an unprecedented pledge: to meet Seattle’s future electricity needs without increasing net greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists say these gases, some of them produced by burning fossil fuels such as coal, make the Earth’s temperature rise. “The mayor […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
The Winds of Change
With the White House seeking to more than double the number of power plants, the best hope for a clean energy future lies in local communities
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
Is help from a federal agency a “charade’?
Is the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) a pawn of the mining industry? The Denver-based Citizens Coal Council says “yes’ and points to documents it obtained by filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The Citizens Coal Council, a federation of 48 citizens’ groups in 21 states, sued the OSM to release its files. […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Tour the underground
It’s probably not the first place you might think of for a family vacation, but coal mines and electricity-generating plants in North Dakota have packaged a tour of their facilities as the “Energy Trail.” Hitting the trail offers more than authentic coal soot. If you time it right, Thursday at the Freedom Mine in Mercer […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
Citizens tackle a mining company
Ann and Mike Tatum won one for the little guy when they convinced a Colorado judge that a coal mining company damaged their second home in Weston, Colo. Last December, Las Animas County District Court ordered Basin Resources to pay the Tatums $160,000 for cracks that appeared in their walls after the company tunneled nearby. […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
No profit in Kaiparowits Mine
NO PROFIT IN KAIPAROWITS MINE A company trying to open a coal mine on southern Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau had better take a second look at its numbers, concludes a recent study by the Grand Canyon Trust. The report says the high cost of trucking coal over 225 miles of roads to rail transfer sites will […]
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
Can land trades stop a subdivision and clean up a mine?
REDSTONE, Colo. – The public doesn’t often benefit from the closure and cleanup of a Western mining operation. But it could at Mid-Continent Resources’ defunct coal mines outside this small town. Through an ambitious series of land swaps, the Forest Service hopes to add about 5,800 acres of the mining company’s land to the adjoining […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Mega coal mine proposed again in Utah
A single dirt road winds through the white sand and expansive piûon-juniper forests of Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau. Encircled by Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, the desert mesa hides both a seldom-visited wilderness and the state’s last large deposit of high-grade coal. Where dusty adventurers now dodge potholes, in […]