Dry Fork Station

The proposed Dry Fork Station coal-fired power plant would be built by Basin Electric Power Cooperative, and would be located near the Dry Fork mine, north of Gilette, WY.

The project has received a siting permit from the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council. The state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued a draft air permit for the project in March 2007; the Sierra Club and the Powder River Basin Resource Council subsequently challenged the air permit. On June 28, 2007, the state DEQ held a public hearing on the project, at which representatives of several environmental groups criticized the project. In August, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) submitted a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project; because Basin Electric has asked the RUS for funding, the project must go through the EIS process.

On Oct. 15, 2007, the DEQ issued the final air permit for the project; construction began on Oct. 17. On Nov. 1, the Sierra Club, the Powder River Basin Resources Council, Earthjustice, and the Wyoming Outdoor Council challenged the project’s air permit, appealing it to the state Environmental Quality Council. Gov. Freudenthal – who received $10,000 in campaign contributions from coal mining companies in 2006 – defended the project in a Nov. 2 statement. The case will be heard in early 2008.

On Oct. 1,2008 the Wyoming EQC ruled against the motions filed by the Sierra Club, Wyoming Outdoor Council and the Powder River Basin Resource Council regarding the air permit and denied their requests to halt construction of Dry Fork Station.

According to an April 2009 Sierra Club update, the plant is under construction, however the Sierra Club and Powder River Basin Resources Council still have a state case against Basin Electric Power Cooperative, and Basin has stated it will work with them to avoid a federal lawsuit. As of October 2009, construction was about 54 percent finished. Commercial operation is scheduled for mid-2011.

On March 5, 2010 the Powder River Basin Resource Council and Sierra Club lost a case in the Wyoming Supreme Court where the groups had challenged an air quality permit that the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality issued for the Dry Fork Station in 2007. The plant is closing in on 75 percent completion rate as of March 2010. The Supreme Court ruling lifts one of the last remaining obstacles for the plant's completion. The plant's $1.3 billion cost includes $334 million in pollution-control equipment.

The groups involved in the suit claimed the plant could degrade air quality the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southern Montana. The plant is to be located 60 miles south of the reservation. The environmental groups argued that worst-case computer modeling showed the plant's emissions, combined with emissions from existing plants in Montana, could cause high levels of pollution on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. However, the justices on the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that the state regulators granted the permit correctly.

Project Details
Sponsor: Basin Electric Power Cooperative Location: Gillette, WY Capacity: 385 MW (422 MW gross) Type: Pulverized coal Projected in service: 2011 Status: Construction (10/07); legal challenge pending

Citizen Groups

 * Powder River Basin Resource Council, Kevin Lind, resources [at] powderriverbasin.org
 * Wyoming Sierra Club, Melanie Stein, melanie.stein [at] sierraclub.org
 * Wyoming Outdoor Council, woc [at] wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
 * Earthjustice, Robin Cooley, denveroffice [at] earthjustice.org

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * US proposed coal plants (both active and cancelled)
 * Coal plants cancelled in 2007
 * Coal plants cancelled in 2008
 * Wyoming and coal
 * State-by-state guide to information on coal in the United States (or click on the map)