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Wyoming's least stable coal companies have the largest proportion of unreclaimed mine land, a report finds. Mine reclamation is the process of cleaning up the land used for mining and restoring it to "equal or better" use. Currently, about 45% of land used for coal mining in Wyoming is unreclaimed, and the two companies with the most unreclaimed land are Cloud Peak Energy and Blackjewel, which went through bankruptcy proceedings last year. Both companies are leaving over half of their land unreclaimed.
Experts point to the declining financial health of the coal industry as one of the causes. Reclamation costs are paid for with the revenue from coal, and as that revenue declines, the areas of unreclaimed land grow. The bankruptcy of Cloud Peak Energy and Blackjewel signaled a downturn for Wyoming's coal industry, but regulations have not changed to account for the increased risk. As companies are unable or unwilling to clean up their land, the cost will either be pushed onto the taxpayers or the mines will remain unreclaimed.
BLM employees seek to unionize
As the Trump administration moves forward with plans to relocate Washington, D.C.-based employees out West, Bureau of Land Management employees are working towards unionizing. A petition to represent 160 employees has been filed, and the BLM has until the end of January to respond.
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Access is imperative but it’s not everything. Access to a degraded landscape is not what we should be passing down to future generations.”
