State: Usibelli permit OK

PALMER - Responding to a federal government request, the state has declared that Usibelli Coal Mine does has the permits it needs to do the work it has been doing.

Opposition groups have put the mining company and state on notice that they disagree.

"Based on the permit history, ... the Alaska Program has taken all appropriate action necessary in affirming that the Wishbone Hill permits are valid," Russell Kirkham, Alaska Coal Regulatory Program manager with the state Department of Natural Resources, says in a letter to federal officials released Monday.

Opposition groups had filed a complaint with DNR and then with the federal Office of Surface Mining pressing their claim that since nobody had mined for coal two years after a permit to do so was issued in 1991 to Idimitsu Alaska Inc., the permits were invalid.

Kirkham, in his letter, states that the permit was renewed multiple times after it was issued and the mining rights to the Wishbone Hill coal project were sold, and then sold again.

"By granting a renewal of the permit with full knowledge of the status of Usibelli's operations (i.e., that coal mining operations had not begun), the DNR was implicitly granting an extension when it granted renewals in 2002 and 2006," Kirkham wrote.

Usibelli spokeswoman Lorali Simon said the state decision supports the company's point of view.

"Usibelli maintains that we have a valid permit to mine coal at Wishbone Hill. The permit was first issued in 1991, and every five years we have gone through the legitimate renewal process as outlined by the state of Alaska," Simon said. "This is just another example of these organizations who have said from Day 1 that they will do everything in their power to shut down our project."

Kirby Spangler with the Castle Mountain Coalition said Kirkham's decision is an interpretation of the facts. His group and others, including Friends of Mat-Su, Alaska Center for the Environment, Cook Inletkeeper, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Pacific Environment and the Sierra Club, have a different interpretation.

"We have something that we believe to be the facts of the matter according to the law. We took that body of information to DNR, they came back with their interpretation of facts," Spangler said.

In his view, he said, Usibelli and the state are working together.

"You have the industry and the regulators working together to ignore their own regulations," he said.

Hence a lawsuit, which hasn't been filed, but which the groups have notified Usibelli and the state will be filed in 60 days.

"We took our same body of facts to OSM and OSM forced DNR to give them an explanation, so we've gotten that, and so now we're taking our same body of facts hopefully into a judicial arena to have a judge look at the facts and make a decision," Spangler said.

Simon said that move will have a chilling effect on dialogue.

She said she finds it especially disappointing in light of the fact that Spangler and others sat down with Joe Usibelli, his wife and Simon on Sunday to have a frank discussion.

"We are disappointed that they are choosing litigation," she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.