Anchorage Daily News

A citizens' group has filed a lawsuit over a proposal to develop a large strip coal mine across Cook Inlet from Alaska's largest city.

The Chuitna Citizens NO-COALition filed an appeal in state Superior Court on Monday. It challenges a decision by the state commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources not to consider their petition to designate the land within the Chuitna River watershed as unsuitable for the coal mine.

PacRim Coal wants to develop the mine on the west side of Cook Inlet. The site is 45 miles west of Anchorage. The company hopes to pull out 300 million metric tons of sub-bituminous coal, roughly equal to the energy of a billion barrels of oil, over 25 years.

But the group said the proposal threatens more than 55 square miles of wildlife and fish.

"We're trying to protect our homes, our lifestyles, and the fish and game resources that we depend on," Judy Heilman, a spokeswoman for the coalition said in a prepared statement. "The vast majority of the residents of Beluga and Tyonek oppose a coal strip mine. It will destroy our way of life."

The group is upset with DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin's refusal to consider the petition, which asserts that the proposed mine site can't be successfully reclaimed.

The group says under the state's mining law the agency must designate an area unsuitable for coal mining if reclamation in the area is not technologically feasible.

A call to the agency was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Becca Bernard, a lawyer with Trustees for Alaska, an Anchorage law firm, said the group didn't want to have to file the lawsuit. It would have preferred to be in front of Irwin talking about the petition.

"We want the commissioner to do the investigation and to hold a hearing," Bernard said.

Irwin last year found that the land proposed for the coal mine were exempt from the petition-review process. He supported that in a final decision last month.

The Chuitna River watershed supports all five species of wild Pacific salmon.

Commercial fisherman Terry Jorgensen of the small community of Beluga said he's been fishing the area since 1981 and the coal mine will ruin his livelihood, as well as that of other commercial fishermen.

"There are seven fish sites that will be destroyed," he said.

Jorgensen, 57, said the area proposed for the mine is a big wetland that gets about 50 inches of rain a year, or three times that of Anchorage.

Once mined, "you can't put it back together," he said, likening the area to a big sponge. "The number one concern is that we really believe it is unsuitable for mining."

Last year, the Chuitna River was listed as one of the nation's most endangered rivers by a group called American Rivers because of the proposed mine.

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