"Standing beneath the power lines situated off Power Road in Colstrip, Montana, you can almost feel the current. Energy audibly crackles above as a covered conveyor belt running under Highway 39 transports coal from the local Rosebud Mine to an enormous power plant, supplying thousands of homes with electricity. In many American towns like this one, the fossil fuel industry has been economically vital-while carrying enormous environmental burdens."
"A recent study from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit working towards a clean energy future, found that "emissions from the Colstrip plant have been linked to $2.1 billion in health costs with 151 premature deaths, 188 emergency room visits, and more than 90,000 cases of asthma symptoms" over the last decade. In 2020, two of the Colstrip plant's four units were shut down."
"Another lawsuit filed against the Rosebud Mine concluded that an environmental analysis completed for a region now being permitted by the Trump administration was flawed, and the district court judge ruled that Rosebud's permit did not adequately consider climate change or hydrological impacts. Now the approval of an Environmental Impact Study, repeatedly delayed by the Biden administration, has allowed mining in a crucial region of the Rosebud M"
Beneath power lines off Power Road in Colstrip, conveyor belts transport coal from the Rosebud Mine to a power plant supplying thousands of homes. Emissions from the Colstrip plant have been linked to $2.1 billion in health costs, 151 premature deaths, 188 emergency room visits, and over 90,000 asthma symptom cases in the last decade. Two of four Colstrip units were shuttered in 2020 amid rising fuel costs and legal settlements under the Clean Air Act. Courts found environmental analyses for Rosebud permits flawed for climate and hydrological impacts. A delayed Environmental Impact Study approval has allowed mining in a crucial Rosebud region.
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