Northern Cheyenne and coal - Sixty year love-hate relationship

Part III in a Series


LAME DEER, Mont. - As summarized in the first two parts of this series, in the 1960’s the Northern Cheyenne Tribe once again successfully (undermanned, underfunded, understaffed and underdog) went to war with the US Government. This time stopping development of huge tribal coal reserves, leased out by the BIA: getting Congress to cancel those leases and later winning a Supreme Court decision (the Hollowbreast Case) clarifying that the Tribe owns all reservation mineral rights (coal, oil and gas, water and timber). In order to achieve these goals, the Tribe partnered with several environmental organizations and interests. That was necessary then.

The Northern Cheyenne Reservation (448,000 acres) is bifurcated by two Montana counties, Rosebud and Big Horn, in southeastern Montana. Until the late 1960’s, this entire area was decidedly on the "low-income" side of the economic equation, populated by hardy souls who somehow "got by", Indian and non-Indian alike, mostly by farming and ranching, hard scrabble living. "At least, we could always shoot a cow back then to get some guts and such," said Cousin Dennis Limberhand, primary source for this series joked "And it tasted better when it belonged to the neighbors."

About 1969, the economic picture changed dramatically. Key factor being that in 1958, the Montana Power Company (MPC) acquired the Rosebud Mine, Colstrip which for several earlier decades had provided coal for railroad locomotives serving the Forsyth area, a thriving business. When diesel replaced coal as railroad fuel for local trains in the 1950’s, the Rosebud Mine was shut down and Colstrip became a ghost town.

MPC, however, looked to the future.

In the late 1960’s, MPC, by purchasing of the coal mine became the new owner of Colstrip, a company town (some 20 miles from Northern Cheyenne). MPC started an ambitious energy development project - Colstrip coal reserves would be once again be developed to fuel four (4) huge coal fired electrical generating stations to be built in the small town of Colstrip, then populated by about 40 resourceful souls.

The first Montana plant to receive coal from the Rosebud Mine was the Corett Plant in Billings, which provides electrical power for the Billings, MT Power grid. The power generated from the Colstrip power plants would also be distributed throughout the Pacific Northwest.

As a result of this electrical generation project to benefit the Northwest area with relatively low-cost energy from coal, Colstrip quickly became a "boom town". Construction workers by the thousands flocked to the small town, drawn by lucrative wages. As I recall, it was "wild and wooly". But, these conditions were soon curbed by responsible local government working with increased public revenues from coal. (Now it seems they have too many laws. Presently, ya got to behave yerself in that small energy town)

In addition, the Crow Tribe, adjacent to Northern Cheyenne decided to develop their tribal coal reserves. Other mines started in the Decker area, also close to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation bordering the MT/WY line. Significant operations began in Wyoming, the whole area characterized as the Powder River Coal Field. Thus, within a few years, the Northern Cheyenne found themselves surrounded by coal development, as we still are. The Otter Creek Coal Mine in Ashland, hailed as the largest surface mine in North American will soon complete the circle.

Construction of the Colstrip Unit 1 (350 megawatt coal-fired generation plant) started in 1970. Of course, that and future plants would issue emissions affecting air quality, though governed by air quality scrubbers, designed to remove harmful particulate required by EPA standards.

The primary contractor building the four coal-fired units was Bechtel, by contract dependent upon union employees. Ironically, Bechtel Construction Superintendent, Jim Waldon (Chickasaw) was sympathetic to Cheyenne employment goals yet unable to buck union policies and politics. In this writer’s view, the unions then were decidedly "red-neck".

"That might be a harsh view. It wasn’t right, but it was the way things were at the time." said John Williams, key MPC staffer at that time.

As the Tribe was not developing its own reserves, tribal members found themselves on the outside-looking-in for employment opportunities with off-reservation development The construction associated with area coal development was dominated by unions and few Cheyenne had the skills, training or union membership to qualify. Only a handful of tribal members gained employment in off-reservation coal development, those tough enough to endure the blatant racism of the times or savvy enough to be union members. Tom Rockroads, very traditional Cheyenne (Cheyenne speaker, Sun Dance man etc.) was one. "I will provide for my family. No matter what," he said. And he did, though it was very challenging.

Ironically, the surrounding areas were moving into economic prosperity while the Northern Cheyenne languished in desperate poverty.

The Tribe, however, was not idle. Under the direction of then President Allen "Chuggy" Rowland, the Tribe assembled a group of scientific professionals (hydrologists, geologists, oil and gas experts, engineers etc) employed by the Northern Cheyenne Research Project. Working in conjunction with outside consultants, the BIA and other Federal agencies, these young determined professionals assembled information about Northern Cheyenne natural resources and the potential for development. They closely studied federal law, regulation and development opportunity, collecting extensive data for the Tribe. As President Rowland held, the Tribe needed accurate information to guide them about resource opportunities. Some critics have noted that this information was not generally made available to tribal members. And since then, the bulk of information has been lost to the Tribe, in part to a fire that destroyed the Tribal Office in 1988. Yet, somewhere the information is still held by someone or some corporation. In my view, the Tribe needs to find out where that valuable information is and demand it back, wholly owned tribal property.

One of the major opportunities that came up in the 1970’s was the preservation of Clean Air. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued Clean Air Standards. Northern Cheyenne was poised to take advantage of this opportunity. EPA arbitrarily issued four levels of Air Quality ranging from Class I - pristine air to Class 4, severely degraded air for areas such as Detroit and Los Angeles. They did not identify any Class 1 Air sites in the Nation: the burden of proof of Class 1 Air rested with the applicants and was only anticipated for areas such as Glacier National Park.

As current Tribal President Llevando "Cowboy" Fisher noted, he was on the Tribal Council then and made the motion for the Tribe to pursue the Class 1 Air Act. Dennis Limberhand, then a Council member noted: "It took a long time and a lot of work, Congressional hearings etc., but we got it done. It was a tough trail."

So, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe prevailed, provided compelling documentation to meet the standard for Class 1 Air. More significantly, the Tribe was the first community in the Nation, bar none to achieve Class 1 Air approval from EPA. Mark this - Northern Cheyenne was not the first Tribe, not the first city, not the first county, but the first entity in America to gain Class 1 Air Status. That should make each and every Cheyenne proud. I am one.

That put the Tribe in a position to thwart the Colstrip project. As a result, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and its members could no longer be ignored by the industrial giants in control of Colstrip coal development and electrical generation.

"The Tribe brought construction to a halt" John Williams, recalls, then a key manager for Montana Power. "It sent shock waves through industry and we found ourselves at the negotiating table with the Northern Cheyenne whose primary objective was to secure employment for their members"

(Clara Caufield can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)