Environmentalists

The Sierra Club, America's oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, opposes DM&E’s proposed coal expansion because of two primary environmental concerns:

Coal-fired energy. DM&E’s rail extension would facilitate additional coal mining in the Powder River Basin, thus propagating continued use of environmentally costly, coal-fired energy production. DM&E originally planned to haul an estimated 100 million tons of coal to coal-burning power plants every year, which could increase coal usage nationwide by 10 percent and fuel as many as 50 new coal-fired plants. Now DM&E is aiming for 125 million tons per year.

In “The Dirty Truth About Coal,” a 2007 report, the Sierra Club said the pollution from coal-based energy “stretches all the way from the coal mine to long after coal is burned and the electricity has been used in our homes and businesses. Mining and burning coal scars lungs, tears up the land, pollutes water, devastates communities, and makes global warming worse.”

The report also says about 75 percent of all coal shipments in the U.S. are made via railroads, which are one of the nation’s largest sources of soot and smog pollution. Both soot and smog can cause health problems, including respiratory problems and increased risk of asthma attacks. Coal-laden railcars – more than 2.1 million a year, based on DM&E’s target – also cause soot pollution when coal dust blows off into the surrounding air.

Burning additional PRB coal would substantially increase carbon dioxide emissions, a known contributor to global warming, as well as mercury, nitrogen oxide and particulate-matter pollution.

Rail construction in open spaces. The Sierra Club opposes the DM&E project, especially the railroad’s plan to construct a new rail line from Wall, S.D., to Wyoming coal mines on a new right-of-way paralleling the Cheyenne River, which will destroy the integrity of a vast area of native grassland.  All along the DM&E’s route, from the Powder River Basin to the Mississippi River, riparian areas and wildlife habitat will be disturbed, erosion will increase, and air will be polluted.  Productive ranching and agricultural operations along the route will be fragmented by DM&E. The economic viability of those farms and ranches will be adversely affected, and their operators will suffer a decline in the quality of their lifestyle.

Like the rest of the Northern Great Plains, western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming presently experience the symptoms of climate change resulting from global warming caused by greenhouse emissions.  In addition to working to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, the Sierra Club believes that, to prevent the destruction or extinction of grassland plant and animal species due to climate change during the next century, it will be essential to preserve as much of our public and agricultural lands as possible as “resilient habitat” for native species. To preserve the biodiversity of America’s mid- and short-grass prairies, we must ensure secure, stress-free areas of habitat.  That is not accomplished by pushing as many as 43 daily coal trains – each one consisting of three locomotives and 135 coal cars – through the heart of an area of public and ranch lands that could serve as an anchor for a 1.2 million-acre resilient habitat reserve. DM&E’s proposal does not afford stress-free habitat.  The coal line’s noise, increased traffic, and pollution will fragment and destroy secure habitat, and close and restrict natural migration corridors.

Action Opposing the PRB Project 

The Sierra Club is the nation's leader in environmental litigation, using the courts to fight for environmental protection at the national, regional and local levels.

Feb. 26, 2007. The Federal Railroad Administration denied DM&E’s request for a $2.3 billion loan to finance extending and updating its main line to haul coal. The Sierra Club issued a legal challenge to the proposed award of the loan under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The FRA’s denial of this massive loan vindicates the Club’s position that taxpayer dollars should not go to fund this railroad. The FRA said that the loan "posed an unacceptably high risk to federal taxpayers."

April 15, 2006. Trying to stop a proposed 980-mile rail line that would haul coal from mines in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit asking the court once again to reject a faulty study by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. In an earlier ruling (see below), the court rejected the project's environmental impact statement and directed the Board to redo the study and include impacts on global warming. The Board issued a new study for the project, but it again ignored the environmental impacts of transporting and burning an estimated 100 million tons of coal in power plants every year, which could increase coal usage nationwide by 10 percent.

March 5, 2004. The Sierra Club sealed a huge victory in a case challenging the licensing of DM&E’s rail construction to create a coal pipeline, and then the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reconsider the decision. The Cheney Energy Task Force had proposed a huge increase in Powder River Basin coal for Midwest power plants, but the court enjoined the rail line's license on the grounds that the U.S. Surface Transportation Board had failed to consider the huge impacts on air quality and global warming caused by the massive coal transport scheme.

“It’s clear that a project this big will contribute enormously to global warming and its devastating effects.”

– Sam Clauson
Conservation Chairman
South Dakota Chapter of the Sierra Club

“We should have all the facts on the table before we make such an enormous national commitment to burning coal for electricity. To us, the biggest social issue of the day is what we are doing to the planet's atmosphere because of [President] Bush's decision to convert us to a coal-based electrical society."
– Jim Dougherty
Sierra Club lawyer

Contact
South Dakota Chapter of the Sierra Club
1101 E. Philadelphia St.
Rapid City, SD 57701
605-342-2244