Natural resource abundance is an advantage that all economies — local and national — covet.

There isn’t a single corner of Delta County’s social or economic life that doesn’t benefit directly from the presence of the local coal mines.

But Delta County’s great, good fortune of natural resource abundance too often is a blessing that’s taken for granted. Some are saying that now it’s time for the friends of Delta County coal to start speaking up.

Even as the county’s super-compliant coal supplies provide fuel for affordable electricity, a richly funded political agenda beginning at the top levels of U.S. government and reaching into local grass roots wants to turn the lights out on the nation’s coal industry, including the North Fork Valley.

The people who manage operations at Oxbow’s Elk Creek Mine are fighting against determined political opposition that wants them out of business. Oxbow, a company that has proven its commitment to local workers and the local community, is facing crippling job cuts next year because of opposition from national environmental groups that never heard of, and don’t care about, Delta County.

Oxbow president Jim Cooper calls it, “The story that isn’t heard.”

Oxbow’s efforts recover additional reserves from its Somerset mine with a routine lease extension has been stalled for five years by national environmentalist opposition and legal maneuvering. Even some North Fork Valley environmentalists joined in the opposition, and now 30 good jobs are going unfilled because of the delays. In a year, another 145 jobs could be gone.

In Cooper’s words, “We have the right to extend the lease, but we are held up at every start” by legal manipulation of the rules, “appeals, and politics.”

And, the anti-coal interests offer nothing as substitute for the most economical half of America’s energy resources they want to shutter. “They want to stop the use of coal, period. What is their alternative? They don’t have one,” says Randy Litwiller, Oxbow vice-president.

Just a few facts and figures show the importance of Delta County’s three local mines. In the case of Oxbow, those facts would include the following:

• Around 350 employees, each one of those jobs helping support four others in the local economy;
• Average pay and benefits over $100,000 per employee contributing to the economies of local communities;
• This year paid 12 percent of the county’s property taxes, $508,208 total, including $303,515 to Delta County school district.

The list runs much longer. And as impressive as the numbers are, they barely hint at the human dimension; the significance of the mine’s presence in the lives of the people who work there, and in the lives of many others who benefit from it.

Oxbow has proven its commitment to workers. Cooper cites one example: When a production shutdown idled workers, Oxbow owner Bill Koch continued paying the workers even though there was no regulation that required it.

There is a proven commitment to the local community, too. Why else, Cooper asks, would Oxbow owner Bill Koch be willing to invest more than $400 million in Delta County over the next nine years, when with a $4.7 million investment he can mine high-grade coal in Colombia?

Oxbow is in fact doing that Colombia project. But it is Oxbow’s commitment to Delta County communities, local miners, and their families that keeps the company here, Cooper explains.

Facts like those don’t count with the coal industry’s enemies. Many of them are successful, politically connected elitists. They live in a world of abundance, which they wrongly believe is the result of their own preference and politics.

Their enablers are politicians and bureaucrats whose ideas of “a post-industrial economy, carbon footprints, and green jobs” spawn endless regulations. The anti-business rules are based on methane emission models that are unproven or even discredited.

The managers and employees of Oxbow’s Somerset mine see the world differently. For them, wealth and prosperity are the result of individual initiative, capital investment and risk taking. They understand that nations who ignore natural laws like supply and demand fundamentals are doomed to fail.

When it comes to Oxbow’s commitment to its new mining project on Oak Mesa north of Hotchkiss, members of the mine’s management team are on the same page. Along with Cooper, they are men with a collective century of mining experience. And there are deep local roots.

For example, when at home, mine vice-president Litwiller irrigates his fields on Fruitland Mesa. Human resources manager Steve Lewis is raising his family here and takes pride in his wife’s own successful local business.

Other professionals who are a part of that team share the commitment. They include financial analyst Rob Thurman, special projects manager Steve Weist, chief engineer Doug Smith, operations superintendent Jens Lange, safety director Terry Hayes, environmental manager Jim Kiger, and others. To a man, they display the high-energy, positive outlook that has harnessed a continent’s natural wealth and created the American Dream.

But even so, the company expects determined opposition to its Oak Mesa project, one that will keep up to 400 local miners and others at work here for decades after the coal seams finally run out at Somerset.

Already being heard are complaints that the project will hurt local “ag tourism.” This in spite of the fact that agriculture and mining have coexisted in Delta County for over 100 years.

Litwiller explains that now isn’t the time for people with a stake in Delta County’s economic future to sit on the sidelines.

“We are approaching a critical juncture in our future and our jobs,” Litwiller writes in a recent article. “In order to preserve both, we have no choice but to get involved.”

Oxbow is mounting a determined effort to get its story heard over the cries of its environmentalist opposition. “We can no longer sit idly by and consider ourselves the ‘Silent Majority.’ We must speak out in support of ourselves at every opportunity.”

The company is working to enlist a network of individuals and community organizations that will stand with them, and who will speak up to politicians and the media about the vital benefits of the coal industry.

That effort is being coordinated by contact person Steve Lewis at the Somerset mine.

Oxbow believes there is a lot of minable coal under Oak Mesa, and the company is committed to producing it for people “in an environmentally responsible manner.”

“We have heard from BLM that our application for an exploration permit is complete and we hope to start drilling core samples in 2012 to check the geology formation among other data that can be acquired through core testing for coal reserves,” said Steve Weist at a recent meeting of the North Fork Coal Working Group. Oxbow hired Weist to work on the Oak Mesa coal exploration project. His duties include the permitting for the project.

The proposed Oak Mesa project extends from the edge of the Bowie Mine holdings across the mesa to the northwest to the Currant Creek area, about 14,000 acres, due north of Hotchkiss. The area does not reach into the forest.

“We believe that we will find 100 to 150 million tons of recoverable coal in this area. We have also just posted out legal notices asking if any of the other coal companies want to join us in the project,” said Weist.

When asked why they are asking other companies if they want to join the exploration venture, Weist replied, “We have to as a part of the process. The mineral (coal) is 100 percent owned by the federal government. It’s public coal. Besides that, there are no BLM leases yet on that property and so other companies can bid on those leases if the BLM decides to lease those blocks.”

One of the next steps is to do an environmental assessment. Third party contractors, not the company, do those studies. “An EA takes about a year to complete,” said Weist.

According to Weist, the whole permitting process is a public process. “The BLM will be putting out the notices for public comment though the permitting process and with the EA and Environmental Impact Study,” said Weist.

“After describing the project and submitting the application we are out of the loop. We don’t even see what BLM is doing with those studies between the BLM and the third party contractors. We may not even agree with the assessment, but we don’t see it until the public sees the first draft of the assessment findings,” said Jim Kiger, who is the environmental permit engineer and permit manager for Oxbow.

County administrator Susan Hansen asked Weist how long it would be before the exploration would start. Weist said that Oxbow hopes to have the second project started before the Elk Creek Mine shuts down. He noted that the projected life of Elk Creek Mine is 2017.

“Wild Earth Justice has one again filed an appeal with BLM decision to approve a small addition (790) acres to Oxbows existing operation,” said Kiger.

The decision was meant to extend the life of Oxbow Mining LLC’s Elk Creek Mine. In its record of decision, BLM said the operation would have no significant impact on the environment and sustain about 300 mining jobs.

Environmental groups, particularly Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians pushed BLM to withdraw its original decision earlier this year for further review. When BLM reached their decision of record, these groups filed another appeal.

Ryan Taylor from the Forest Service said that this appeal could set the small modification to Oxbows operation back another year.

While this discussion concerning leases and coal was going on, Jim Kiger also said that, although Oxbow does not have their eye on the Currant Creek area for any future development, Oxbow has written a comment to the Secretary of Agriculture asking that the Currant Creek Area not be included in the roadless area with the new ruling.

Delta County is also sending a letter and comments asking that Currant Creek be left available for future coal development. “We have to consider the social and economic impacts that this would have if Currant Creek is taken out of play for future development,” said Hansen.

Oxbow Mining believes that it will take at least two years to complete permitting and drilling of 23 to 44 exploratory bore holes on its proposed Oak Mesa project. Any actual drilling operations would not begin until at least a year from now.

Steve Weist, special projects manager at Oxbow, spoke last week at the county commissioners public forum. He explained the company has applied to the BLM for permission to explore in the area north of Hotchkiss and assess the extent and quality of coal deposits it believes are there. Completing that application process and the Environmental Assessment document will take a year minimum, the company estimates.

If Oxbow sees economic potential from mining Oak Mesa coal, it would then have to complete a two-year-long environmental impact statement process before mine construction could occur. The two-year EIS process could also be delayed by law suits from anti-coal interests.

The company’s options on mine portal locations, on haul routes, on rail head locations, and other details of a proposal would be examined during the EIS process. Weist said.

Weist said the company is eager to attend any local town meetings or community forums to discuss the Oak Mesa project.

Oxbow’s Elk Creek mine at Somerset currently produces 5 million tons of coal annually. The mine is expected to cease production sometime later in this decade; Weist last week pegged the mine-out target date at 2017.

Oxbow actively asking for support for proposed new coal mine

Oxbow Mining, LLC is sending representatives to speak before town councils and organizations to explain their proposed Oak Mesa Project.

On Thursday, June 9, Randy Litwiller, general manager, and Steve Weist, project manager and engineer, gave a presentation to the Hotchkiss Town Council about the possibility of the new coal mine north of Hotchkiss.

Litwiller emphasized that the project would take years to get through the approval process. Oxbow would like to do explorative drilling next summer. That would be followed by a NEPA review process and a full environmental assessment known as an EIS. After that, the Bureau of Land Management would open up bids for coal leases on Oak Mesa.

A press release from Oxbow Carbon, the parent company of Oxbow Mining, noted that Oak Mesa “is a historical mining area with a long rich legacy of coal mining.”

More than 744 million recoverable tons of coal is present in the North Fork Valley according to a 2000 USGS report. The North Fork Valley produces more than 40 percent of Colorado’s coal.

“This step in exploration is an opportunity for Oxbow to continue producing clean, low-sulfur, super-compliant Colorado coal,” Litwiller said. “And allow us to provide a stable future for our 360 employees and their families.”

The life expectancy of Oxbow’s Elk Creek Mine is about five to seven years. With a new mine in Oak Mesa, those jobs could be retained in Delta County. Litwiller said those opposed to the mine are mainly environmental groups which are not concerned about keeping jobs in the county. In addition to the mine workforce, there are many indirect jobs providing services supporting the mine.

According to Oxbow, “Elk Creek Mine contributes more than $36 million per year in payroll and benefits and has an estimated economic impact of $90 million annually to the local economy.”

Mayor Wendell Koontz, who works for West Elk Mine, applauded Oxbow “for being way out in front of the game. This is a good forum to face the public.”

Litwiller encouraged citizens to express their opinion on the project throughout the process. Oxbow is working on a website to facilitate those comments getting to the BLM.

Trustee Jane Wills said it was a good thing for Oxbow to make the presentation because people need information to make an informed comment.

“Why would you hide a good thing for the valley?” Litwiller replied. “Hope you will support us.”

If everything were to work as Oxbow Mining could hope, the 360 miners would dredge out the last of the Elk Creek Mine’s recoverable coal in 2017, then show up the next day in a new mine, one under Oak Mesa north of Hotchkiss.

It’s probably too much to ask, but that’s the best-case scenario sketched out by Randy Litwiller, vice president of Oxbow Mining, which owns the Elk Creek Mine and is hoping to explore the size of the coal reserve underlaying Oak Mesa.

“Theoretically, we could have a mine ready to move people into by 2017,” Litwiller said.

To make that work, several things need to fall into place, not least of them being final approval from the Bureau of Land Management of the company’s proposed lease of about 800 acres east of the mine that it began pursuing on Sept. 4, 2006.

“It’s been five dang years,” Oxbow Mining President Jim Cooper said of the additional land. “We’re supposed to have a continuous-mining crew in there Aug. 11 of this year.”

The time is quickly approaching for Oxbow to decide whether to continue pursuing the additional coal under what is called the “east lease,” which is large enough to justify the effort to mine it from the existing operation, but too small to be sought out on its own, Cooper said.

If it ultimately turns out Oxbow is prohibited from digging out that coal, it will have to reduce the size of its work force, most likely by attrition and not by layoffs, Cooper said.

The additional life the lease would give the Elk Creek Mine would make for a smoother transition for miners, he said. The expansion, however, has been a flash point between Oxbow and environmental organizations, which have filed multiple appeals to prevent it.

Most recently, Earthjustice, founded as the legal arm of the Sierra Club, in February appealed the expansion to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, saying the coal Oxbow wanted to dig out would be burned in power plants across the nation, leading to the release of more than 10 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The Bureau of Land Management “needs to recognize the link” between the coal being mined in western Colorado and “what that means as far as carbon dioxide emissions downstream,” Jeremy Nichols of Wild Earth Guardians in Denver said.

The biggest objection Wild Earth Guardians has to the mine expansion, though, is Oxbow’s lack of interest in capturing methane that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere.

That methane is, like the coal, a federal resource that “should not be frittered away,” but turned to use either by being piped away or burned on site for electrical generation, Nichols said. “It could be lucrative.”

Wild Earth Guardians has taken no position on the possibility of a new mine beneath Oak Mesa, but said if Oxbow commits to capture and use methane from there, the organization “would seriously consider not opposing” the new mine, Nichols said.

Cooper dismissed the notion that Wild Earth Guardians or any other environmental organization would agree to a new mine.

“All they want us to do is go away,” Cooper said, “They’ve been protesting everything in this valley.”

Wild Earth Guardians’ hostility to coal mines is clear on its website, http://www.wildearthguardians.org, where it touts among its activities “preventing the construction of new coal mines in Colorado.”

Coal, the environmental organization said, “is not only the root cause of global warming, but poses myriad other disastrous impacts,” such as emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide and fine particulate matter.

Still, said Nichols, “The reality is that coal mining is there” in the North Fork Valley. “We need to talk about options and better ways to do it.”

Coal demand isn’t going away, Cooper said, noting the U.S. Energy Information Administration anticipates the generation of electricity from coal will increase by 25 percent from 2009 to 2035.

The BLM has now conducted three environmental assessments of Oxbow’s proposal, bureau spokesman Steven Hall said. The extent of the challenge to the expansion, however, exceeds the scope of the agency, Hall said.

“We tried to look at the carbon emissions for burning that coal” but were unable to determine the total effect on the environment of mining the coal in the North Fork Valley, Hall said.

Wild Earth Guardians “no doubt will be dissatisfied with that. Their goal is to shut down coal mining,” Hall said. “The BLM is committed to the development of coal. We have not made a decision as an agency to stop coal mining.”

Oxbow Carbon, the parent company of Oxbow Mining, plans to explore for federal coal resources in the Oak Mesa area north of Hotchkiss. A 2000 USGS report has shown there is more than 744 million recoverable tons of coal in the North Fork Valley with an estimated value of $28 to $33 billion.

“This step in exploration is an opportunity to continue producing clean, low-sulfur, super-compliant Colorado coal,” said Randy Litwiller, vice president of Oxbow Mining, “and allow us to provide a stable future for our 360 employees and their families.”

Oxbow’s existing operation at the Elk Creek Mine contributes more than $36 million per year in payroll and benefits and has an estimated economic impact of $90 million annually to local economies.

Conventional wisdom is that the current coal production in the North Fork Valley has a life of between 10 and 20 years, depending on who is making the estimates.

Most of the coal currently is being mined in Gunnison County, but Oxbow Carbon, the parent company of Oxbow Mining would like to change both of those sets of facts.

Late last week Oxbow announced that they plan to explore for coal reserves on federal land in the Oak Mesa area.

“This step in exploration is an opportunity for Oxbow to continue producing clean, low-sulfer, super-compliant Colorado coal,” said Randy Litwiller, Vice President of Oxbow Mining, in the press release.

Litwiller says that Oxbow has about 360 employees and contributes more than $36 million per year in payroll and benefits to the local economies.

Oxbow’s Jim Cooper recently indicated that a USGS report shows there could be as much as 744 million tons of coal, which could be recovered from North Fork Valley sources. “I don’t see any reason for 350 miners to be out of work if there is that much more coal,” Cooper said. He says there is no company better qualified than Oxbow to go after that coal.

Oxbow currently operates the Elk Creek Mine, north of Somerset. They are also seeking a modification of their federal lease, which involves 790 acres and has an estimated to be 3.8 million tons of recoverable coal that will not be mined unless the lease is not modified. The Bureau of Land Management officials say the lease would give Oxbow one year of additional reserves and continuity of operations.

The Elk Creek Mine, which is a long wall operation, has been active since 2002, and produces about 5 million tons of coal annually. The company pays more than $500,000 in taxes to Delta County each year and another $1.2 million to Gunnison County.

Should recoverable coal reserves be confirmed in the Oak Mesa area, the tax base in Delta County will see a substantial increase. The North Fork Valley already produces about 40 percent of Colorado’s coal.

Findings could extend Oxbow’s operations, economic investments in North Fork Valley

Delta County – Oxbow Carbon, the parent company of Oxbow Mining, is pleased to announce a plan to explore for Federal coal resources in the Oak Mesa area.

Oak Mesa, north of the Town of Hotchkiss, is a historical mining area with a long rich legacy of coal mining. A 2000 USGS report has shown there is more than 744 million recoverable tons of coal in the North Fork Valley.

“This step in exploration is an opportunity for Oxbow to continue producing clean, low-sulfur, super-compliant Colorado coal,” Randy Litwiller, Vice-President of Oxbow Mining said, “And allow us to provide a stable future for our 360 employees and their families.”

In addition to the hundreds of employees at the Elk Creek Mine, there are more than a thousand indirect jobs supporting the mine. The North Fork Valley produces more than 40 percent of Colorado’s coal.

Oxbow’s existing operation at the Elk Creek Mine contributes more than $36 million per year in payroll and benefits and has an estimated economic impact of $90 million annually to the local economies.