Yesterday, Arch Coal abandoned its attempts to mine 1.6 billion tons of coal from the enormous Otter Creek reserve in southeastern Montana. Citing "capital constraints" (Arch filed for bankruptcy on January 11), "near-term weakness in coal markets" (renewables and natural gas are cheaper and no one wants to buy coal anymore), and "an extended and uncertain permitting outlook," Arch said it could "no longer devote the time, capital, and resources required to develop a coal mine on the Otter Creek reserve block." Accordingly, it is closing its Otter Creek office, asking the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to suspend work on its permit, and basically throwing in the towel. 

Marc Gunther wrote the backstory on Otter Creek for Sierra in 2013 ("Warren Buffet's Coal Problem"), about how it was opposed by an unlikely coalition of Montana ranchers, environmental activists, and Northern Cheyenne tribal members. He quoted Otto Braided Hair, Jr: 

"Is this whole place going to be turned into a black pit, and then it's gone? Are you going to have grandchildren? Are you going to have great-grandchildren? What kind of land are you going to leave them?"

Appeals to future generations had limited influence on the company's plans, but what really got them was the "extended and uncertain permitting outlook" the company mentioned in its press release. Largely responsible for that was the environmental legal team at Earthjustice, which has dogged the issue since 2010, demanding information on the environmental impacts of the project from state and federal agencies. "Delay is a positive interim success," Earthjustice explains in its overview of the case, "because it increases the likelihood that the window of opportunity for Arch Coal to sell Otter Creek coal to Asian markets will close before the projects are even underway."

Now that China is slowing its coal boom, that window of opportunity has shut. Jennie Harbine has worked on the Otter Creek issue for Earthjustice for six years. "Arch Coal’s decision to give up on its last-gasp effort to develop a 1.6-billion-ton coal mine in southeastern Montana simply reaffirms what we’ve already known for some time," she says: "There is no future in dirty coal."

"The writing was on the wall," says Dawson Dunning, a Northern Plains member whose family has ranched on Otter Creek for more than a century. "It was only a matter of time before this project collapsed. All of us in Montana are fortunate that it collapsed before this gigantic mine opened up and a productive ranching valley was destroyed."