DICKINSON, N.D. (AP) — Opponents of a proposed southwestern North Dakota coal mine argued Tuesday the project would hurt the region's farm economy, damage its water supplies and put an industrial eyesore within 15 miles of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
"It's going to really foul up agriculture in quite a serious way, and then it's going to foul up the groundwater quality," said Stephen Merrill, a retired soils scientist who formerly worked at the U.S. Agriculture Department's research lab in Mandan.
North Dakota's Public Service Commission is reviewing a coal mining permit application submitted by South Heart Coal LLC. The company is part of Great Northern Project Development LP, of Houston, Texas, which owns vast coal reserves in western North Dakota.
An administrative law judge working on the commission's behalf listened to testimony on the project Tuesday at a hearing at Dickinson State University. The proposed coal mine would be located near South Heart, a Stark County community about 12 miles west of Dickinson.
The hearing, called an informal conference, is part of the commission's review process for the mining application. Rich Southwick, a vice president for Great Northern Project Development, and Carrie La Seur, an attorney and president of Plains Justice, an environmental organization, said they do not expect a final commission decision on the project until next year.
Southwick said he believed the site's coal could be mined and its land later reclaimed while keeping environmental disruption to a minimum.
"This is a suitable site for coal mining," he said. "We can do it in an environmentally sound manner, and we can contain the impacts to within the (mine's) permanent boundary."
The Tuesday hearing was divided into afternoon and evening segments. Almost 100 people attended the Tuesday night session, most of whom were wearing yellow T-shirts with the words, "Neighbors United," the name of a group opposing the coal mine.
The 4,600-acre mine would produce about 2.5 million tons of lignite annually and create about 150 permanent jobs, Southwick said. Western North Dakota's lignite mines now produce about 30 million tons of coal annually.
The South Heart mine is intended to fuel a gasification plant that would manufacture hydrogen for electric generation, while reserving the carbon dioxide, a gas blamed for global warming, for injection underground to improve oil production.
Southwick said the coal mine and electric power plant will be practical only if the federal government imposes new emissions limits on carbon dioxide. Otherwise, the power the $2-billion-plus factory would produce would be too expensive, Southwick said.
"Whether it becomes competitive is going to depend upon what sort of energy policy we see coming from this administration and this Congress," Southwick said.
If carbon dioxide is limited, "then, yes, we believe this project will become competitive," he said. "If this policy rejects carbon constraints, we're going to have to go back to the drawing board."
Merrill said the mine plan would harm a flood plain and an underground water supply by constructing sedimentation holding points, a road for heavy, coal-hauling trucks, and an operations center for storing coal mining equipment.
"They're going to have this huge operations center right plumb in the middle of the valley," he said.
Mary Hodell, of Dickinson, whose parents and uncle run a farming and ranching operation two miles southwest of the proposed mine site, said the project would displace 10 to 12 farmers and affect the operations of many others.
"It would destroy the farming community that is South Heart," she said.
The National Parks Conservation Association, a Washington, D.C., advocacy organization, has opposed the mine's location because of its nearness to the south unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which has scenic badlands visits.
Southwick said the mine would be about 13 miles from the park, but he said its operations will have a low profile and should not be visible from the park, or by motorists driving by on Interstate 94.
"With respect to how the ... mine would impact the park, we're just not seeing that," Southwick said.
When the project was in its initial planning stages, "we spent some time in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, particularly some of their vistas, to see if we could actually see the (coal mine) site, and it's a challenge," Southwick said.
He said the mine would not be visible from the Painted Canyon overlook, a popular stop near Interstate 94.
"We're anxious to hear more about why they have this concern, that somehow it will affect the park," he said.
La Seur said dust and haze from the mine "would provide some visibility impacts ... in a pristine place where people expect that kind of completely untouched experience. It will change the experience for tourism."
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