Usibelli builds new road

SUTTON — Although Usibelli Coal Mine has started building a road to its coal leases in Wishbone Hill, the company says that doesn’t mean mining is poised to start.

“We are still conducting the feasibility study. We have not made any decisions to move forward with development, but this is a piece of the project that we can complete now and intend to do so this summer,” said company spokeswoman Lorali Simon.

She said the company has permits to do the work and won’t get the entire 2.7 miles done this summer. Usibelli is essentially just building the approach, she said. The company plans to use the road to move its trucks onto the Glenn Highway if mining commences, thus removing the need to use Buffalo Mine Road.

“It’s maybe a total of a couple of acres worth of activity there,” Simon said of the summer’s construction work.

The mine has been a controversial topic in the area, with opinions expressed in public forums both for and against the project. Pro-mining residents want the jobs it will bring. Anti-mining residents worry about accompanying pollution, noise and traffic. Usibelli says it will do its utmost to lessen the impacts on the area.

A Japanese company has said it would buy the coal if Usibelli can mine it. The most likely scenario has trucks running from the mine to the borough’s Port MacKenzie to be loaded onto ships bound for Asia.

The ongoing feasibility study will determine whether the company can bring the coal to market in a cost-effective way. Simon said drilling and exploratory work wrapped up last summer.

The roadwork would have started earlier, but there were birds in the way, she said.

“We had initially planned to start earlier this summer, but we had a biologist do a walk-through, a bird survey, and he noticed two nests with fledglings so we waited until they had fledged,” Simon said.

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