Arch Coal will not develop a massive coal mine in southeastern Montana.
The company based Thursday’s decision on a weakened global coal market and an uncertain permitting process.
Coal advocates say the decision will cost Montana thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue and wages.
They blame the project’s failure on environmentalists and political heel-dragging on behalf of Governor Steve Bullock’s administration.
Bullock counters that the state waited over a year for Arch to re-submit its mining application after regulators said the project could harm local water supplies.
Meanwhile, The Montana Environmental Information Center’s Anne Hedges applauded the move:
“It’s a good day for those people who have more of a global perspective of the impacts of the mine and a great day for the people on the ground,” she says.
The project would have extracted up to 20-million-tons of coal annually from state-owned and private leases south of Ashland.