The effects of coal mining on public lands don’t end at the mine. L.J. and Karen Turner have been ranching in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin for decades. The Turners have watched their water supply gradually dry up after the Peabody Antelope Creek Mine began operating 10 miles downstream from their ranch.
L.J. and Karen Turner (photo courtesy of LivingWithOilAndGas.com)
My grandparents came out here in 1918,” L.J. says. When my grandfather came out here, he wanted to be sure to get that one big spring because it was foolproof water. But the coal mines have cut this aquifer completely through. It used to be the source of water for this entire pasture, but it’s dried up. There was a big spring right here, and then another one on down about half a mile. They’re gone. They’re just long gone.”
“To get the coal out, they pumped the water out,” Karen says. “We’re in the highest part of the county, and the coal mines are lower, to the east, so the water drains that way. Some of those coal mines are 1,000 feet deep, and all the shallow aquifers are disappearing.”
“If you go complain that the coal company, they’re going to tell you, ‘Well, it’s been awful dry this year, you know—that’s probably the problem,’” L.J. says. “Generally they don’t admit that there’s any problem at all. No one seems concerned about the fact that we’re losing our water."
Lifting the moratorium on new coal leases on federal land, as the Trump administration proposes, could cost hard-working ranching families like the Turners their livelihoods.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and tell him that his department must make the coal industry pay its fair share for all costs to our land and water. Call 1-888-434-0402 or text “FAIR” to 69866
