King coal on the ropes: Northwest Colorado town mull impact Of EPA's Clean Power Plan.

AuthorBest, Allen

AT INVESCO FIELD IN DENVER, THE BRONCOS WERE NEAR ING KICKOFF AGAINST THE BALTIMORE RAVENS. SOME 200 MILES TO THE NORTHWEST IN CRAIG, CUSTOMERS AT Eastside Liquor prepared to watch. Wearing orange jerseys, they bought whiskey and beer mainly. The store has a decent selection from craft breweries, including Longmont's Left Hand Brewing and Fort Collins' Odell.

A Fat Tire? Not at Eastside Liquor or, for that matter, any other liquor store, bar or restaurant in Craig. The slight was intended. New Belgium, the Fort Collins-based brewer of Fat Tire, had donated money to WildEarth Guardians - the group that filed a lawsuit challenging federal leasing of coal at the ColoWyo Mine, located 30 miles south of Craig. ColoWyo's coal keeps the fires going in the three power plants in Craig Station, Colorado's second largest electricity generating complex. The mine employs 230 and the power plant another 300, many of whom live in Craig, population 9,000.

U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson agreed with WildEarth Guardians that the Department of Interior had violated environmental disclosure laws. In Craig, a different offense was Earth Guardians had threatened the town's very existence. "Deplorable" was one word used to describe the group. In May, at a meeting about the lawsuit held at Moffat County High School, only a few of the available 815 seats remained vacant. When New Belgium's funding of Wildliarth was later revealed, Fat Fires were yanked from coolers. New Belgium reps explained they had not specifically provided money to fund the lawsuit. Since then, a revised environmental review has been conducted. For now, however, Fat Tires remain retired.

WAR ON COAL

Black-and-white "Coal Keeps the Lights On" signs dot Craig and other parts of the coal-mining country of northwestern Colorado. In April, the three-county area of Routt, Moffat and Rio Blanco delivered two-thirds of the coal mined in Colorado.

The area has 3,149 of Colorado's 8,467 jobs coal-mining in Colorado, according to a report by economist Gary Horvath for the Econimic Development Council of Colorado. The mining jobs in northwest Colorado deliver an average household income of $ 1 10,449.

People there talk about a war on coal. They're not altogether wrong. WildEarth Guardians makes no bones about its goal. Denvet-based Jeremy Nichols, the group's climate and energy program director, said coal needs to stay in the ground. Coal, when burned, pollutes the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that threatens global climate disruption because of increased temperatures and other effects.

This was not the first spear flung by WildEarth Guardians. Responding to another lawsuit, Jackson in 2014 had ruled that the federal government erred in its analysis of a proposed coalmine near Paonia. The government described in detail the job creation and other economic benefits of the mine but glossed over the economic harm caused by burning coal.

In Craig and other towns along the Yampa River, many residents dismiss such talk as nonsense. They point to blue skies. "Now, Denver and Boulder, that's where you get air pollution," they say. If they concede harm from carbon dioxide at all, they dismiss the importance of U.S. efforts to reduce emissions.

"We will throw the United States economy nto a further tailspin because of this nonsense, and for what? One-hundredth of a degree," said John Kincaid, a Moffat County commissioner.

Kincaid was referring to an estimate by the Cato Institute of how much the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan will slow global increases in temperature. The EPA's plan was formulated in response to a lawsuit filed by Massachusetts and 11 other states plus three cities and 13 mostly environmental non-government groups. In a 5-4 decision...

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