Pacific Coast Coal Company has applied to resume coal production in the John Henry No. 1 Mine near Black Diamond.
In April, Pacific filed a revised application for its current operating permit to the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement.
Pacific first attempted to reopen the mine in 2007, when the Office of Surface Mining ordered the company to either resume mining production or move into final reclamation.
“We were about to pull the trigger in late 2008 when the recession hit,” Dave Morris wrote in an email, general manager of Pacific. “At that point we decided to hold off for a bit until the dust settled. Coal prices dropped in the first half of 2009 but started to recover by the end of the year and we again decided to resume mining operations.”
Reclamation refers to the process where the landscape around a mine is restored.
As part of the permit application package, Pacific has a detailed reclamation process, which is designed to protect the land should the company ever pull out of the mine.
A worst-case scenario included in the permit estimated a reclamation bond could cost the federal government $5.3 million.
“(In May 2010) as we were beginning to uncover coal, OSM issued a cessation order and forced us to move into final reclamation because we did not have a contract to sell coal,” Morris said. “We then went to them with an application to mine a small amount of coal so we could demonstrate the strong and growing market.”
In September 2010, the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement denied the permit, stating “the company has not shown it has buyers for its coal, and it has not sufficiently described the impacts of its request. It is this request OSM is denying.”
Another rise in coal prices and the matching currency exchange between the United States and Canada helped Pacific secure a contract with Lehigh Hanson Cement.
The coal will be delivered to the Richmond cement manufacturing facility in British Columbia. The contract expires in 2015.
“The bottom line is that with strong coal prices and the weak U.S. dollar, we are in a great competitive position,” Morris said.
Pacific is ready to begin production as soon as the application is approved by OSM, he explained. Pacific has maintained their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System and Air Quality permits, which are necessary for coal mining.
“We also have 30 years of environmental information that shows that we don’t cause problems and that reclamation is without complication,” Morris added.
Morris said that he plans to mine for at least five years. From there, he will decide whether to continue mining deeper into underground coal resources.
A feasibility study will determine whether or not it is financially viable. With fluctuating coal prices, Morris stated that it is very dependent on the market prices.
Morris expects to ship on average about 340 tons of coal per day or 10 truck loads, roughly 84,000 tons per year.
When the mine was in full production in the mid 1990s, it produced about 250,000 tons per year.
The John Henry No. 1 mine is located west of Lake 12 between Black Diamond-Ravensdale Road and Green River Gorge Road. It first opened in 1985 and was active until 1997.
