Correction: This story has been updated Dec. 2, 2024 to change the name of the national group from 'Just Transition' to 'Just Transition Fund' and to clarify the time frame the group spends with a coal community.
Demand for coal is expected to keep declining, so a national group is stepping in to help communities with the transition, including Gillette.
There’s hundreds of billions of federal dollars available for declining coal communities.
“But just because the money is there doesn't mean that they can access it,” said Heidi Binko, CEO of the Just Transition Fund.
It’s a national group that helps with this process. Binko said it takes money and resources to access those federal dollars.
“If you're a rural community and you're trying to access funds for economic development, you have to sift through more than 400 different programs spread across 10 different agencies,” she said. “Those programs all have different eligibility requirements, application processes, etc.”
Binko’s group spends anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more with a community, training people and fleshing out ideas.
“How can they try to strengthen local economies that have been dependent on coal as the energy changes?” she said.
Once that community has some specific ideas in mind and a plan in motion, then they can apply for federal funds.
This year, Just Transition is working with the Gillette College Foundation, along with 11 other groups across the country. It’s part of the Just Transition Fund's “Coal Communities Get Ready!” challenge, which offers $250,000 over the course of the year to each project.
Binko said they had many applicants, and Gillette’s rose to the top for two reasons. First, the Powder River Basin is the top producing coal region in the country. Second, even with that producing status, the region is still looking to diversify its economy. The latter is key for communities prepping for coal to continue to decline, Binko said.
“The best economic outcomes happen when communities plan early and start to engage early,” she said.
Binko said if a coal-dependent area doesn’t make the effort early?
“I don't want to say disaster, but it's not going to produce the best outcomes,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better your chances are.”
The Gillette College Foundation is also partnered with the University of Wyoming. The Foundation is eyeing entrepreneurship as a path forward for the Powder River Basin — not necessarily for only coal miners, but for others in the area.
“It's really more intended for the community writ large,” Binko said. “When a power plant or coal worker loses their job in that community, upwards of four other people can lose their jobs because those miners and power plant workers don't have the additional income to spend at local restaurants, local stores.”
That sentiment was echoed by Dana Miller, the entrepreneurial ecosystem coordinator with the Gillette College Foundation.
“Entrepreneurs are really the backbone of our community, and they make our community thrive and vibrant,” Miller said.
The Foundation has already supported several local business ideas, including the Water Rippler.
“The product is something that solves a centuries old problem in the agriculture industry: to keep the stock tank from freezing in the frigid temperatures in the winter,” Miller said. “Every rancher we speak to talks about, ‘Yep, we have to chop ice all winter long, and it's hard.’”
In 100-gallon stock water tanks, the Water Rippler moves water just enough to keep it from freezing. Miller said it also uses about a tenth of the electricity of a tank heater.
She said these are the kinds of projects the Foundation wants to keep supporting, and having access to federal grants will make a big difference.
The Just Transition Fund will work with them over the next year to secure that funding.
