Montana considers cashing in on 1.2B tons of coal

Montana officials are on track to seek bids this fall to mine a massive reserve of state-owned coal near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation -- a deposit with enough fuel to feed the United States' coal appetite for a year. Experts describe the state's Otter Creek reserve as world class: more than 1.2 billion tons of coal massed beneath the rolling hills of the Powder River Basin. The Montana Land Board is to decide in September whether to seek a company to mine the reserve, following recent public hearings that revealed a local community divided over the proposal. The board is chaired by Gov. Brian Schweitzer, an outspoken coal advocate who has said the tracts will be put up for auction. Lining up behind development is a powerful alliance of coal industry supporters. That includes many of the area's elected officials and proponents of the Tongue River Railroad, a long-stalled $341 million line proposed from Miles City south through Otter Creek to the Wyoming border. The railroad would cut through dozens of ranches. Opposition to the line has long been a rallying cry for those landowners nervous about the change coal development would bring. The fight has attracted the Sierra Club, which along with the Billings-based Northern Plains Resource Council has organized ranchers and tribal members against the project. Aiding them behind the scenes has been candy company billionaire Forrest Mars Jr. He owns the 140-square-mile Diamond Cross Ranch along the Tongue River south of Ashland and doesn't want the railroad to cross his property...BusinessWeek