The Interior Department on Friday signed off on a plan to expand coal mining on 857 acres of public land in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the nation’s largest coal-producing region.
The agency approved a plan that will allow the Antelope Mine to operate through 2037 and mine an additional 14.5 million tons of federally owned coal, according to the agency.
The mine, which is owned by the Navajo Transitional Energy Co., began operating in the 1980s and has a permitted mining capacity of 42 million tons per year. Coal dug up from the mine is shipped to more than 30 power plants across the nation.
Interior said the decision to approve the expansion was made after the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement completed an environmental assessment.
