Caption: Four Corners power plant
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A federal judge has blocked
efforts by a
Navajo Nation coal mine to expand operations within its
permitted area in northwestern New Mexico.
Navajo Transitional Energy Co. LLC is seeking an emergency
stay on the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge John Kane in
Colorado. The company says the ruling will not affect supply
to the
Four Corners Power Plant in the immediate future but
jeopardizes its long-term sustainability.
Kane earlier this year ruled that the federal Office of
Surface Mining must consider the effects of burning the coal
extracted from the Navajo Mine. The parties in a 2012
lawsuit failed to reach an agreement on the remedy, so Kane
this week sent the tribe's application for a permit revision
back to the Surface Mining officials and ordered them to
comply with federal law.
The agency is set to release an environmental impact
statement for the power plant and the mine soon. Kane said
it's possible that could satisfy his order and allow mining
to resume in a roughly 800-acre section of the Navajo Mine.
The total permitted area is nearly 21,000 acres near
Farmington.
Environmental groups had challenged the Office of Surface
Mining's claim that the Navajo Mine isn't harming the
environment of people's health. They were concerned
particularly with the effect of mercury coming from the
power plant's combustion and the disposal of coal ash waste.
"It's tiresome that these processes are being marginalized,
that we're getting documents that are minimizing the
responsibility for impacts to the water, to the land, to
public health," said Mike Eisenfeld of the San Juan Citizens
Alliance. "It's somewhat shameful the approach."
Christopher Holmes, a spokesman for the Office of Surface
Mining, declined to comment on Kane's ruling. In court
documents, the agency argued it has little, if any,
authority to address any effects and that vacating its
approval of the permit revision application would affect the
tribe's economy and threaten the reliability of the region's
power supply.
Navajo Transitional Energy CEO Clark Moseley said the
environmental harms were "wholly speculative." The company
also has filed a notice of appeal with the 10th Circuit U.S.
Court of Appeals.
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