Oregon's Energy Facility Siting Council meets Nov. 19 and 20 to take up whether to end the state site certificate for the closed Boardman Coal Plant, and holds a hearing the first evening on solar and batteries at the nearby Carty Generating Station. In South Dakota, Black Hills Energy's electric rate increase takes effect Dec. 1 after state regulators approved a settlement last week, and the Public Utilities Commission holds a Nov. 23 meeting in Aberdeen, S.D., on a proposed natural gas plant. The Bureau of Land Management has also published a proposed rewrite of its land use planning rules, open for comment until Jan. 11.
Dates ahead:
- Monday, Nov. 16: petitions and comments on a Lake Creek irrigation permit near Spearfish
- Tuesday, Nov. 17: Idaho geothermal lease sale
- Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 18 and 19: North Dakota oil and gas hearings in Bismarck
- Thursday, Nov. 19: Carty hearing in Boardman; siting council meets Nov. 19 and 20
- Friday, Nov. 20: Reeds Gulch gold mine and Rosebud Mine bond release comments
- Monday, Nov. 23: Hub City Energy Park public input meeting in Aberdeen, S.D.; Water Court objections, Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone
- Wednesday, Nov. 25: Wyoming March 2027 lease sale comments
- Friday, Nov. 27: early comments on Montana-Dakotas February 2027 and Wyoming June 2027 sales
- Tuesday, Dec. 1: party status applications for Hub City Energy Park
- Wednesday, Dec. 2: South Dakota Water Management Board on Dewey-Burdock water permits
- Thursday, Dec. 3: BLM online session on its planning rule
- Wednesday, Dec. 9: Wyoming lease sale
- Thursday, Dec. 10: Montana oil and gas board hearing; comments to the Office of Management and Budget on the planning rule's information collection
- Monday, Dec. 14: Carty written comments
- Tuesday, Dec. 22: Water Court objections, Yellowstone River between the Clarks Fork and the Bighorn
- Monday, Jan. 11: BLM planning rule comments
Oregon
Boardman Coal Plant site, and solar at Carty
The Oregon Department of Energy will present its recommendation on Portland General Electric's request to terminate the site certificate for the Boardman Coal Plant at the Energy Facility Siting Council's November meeting, for the council's "concurrence, modification, or rejection," according to the department's November project updates. The roughly 550-megawatt plant in Morrow County stopped running on Oct. 15, 2020, and decommissioning was finished in December 2023, according to the department's project page. Portland General Electric filed its termination request on Nov. 12, 2024, notifying the department that all site certificate conditions had been satisfied, according to the project page. Because the certificate was issued in 1975, before the council adopted its termination rules, the page says the council's procedural requirements for termination do not apply, though the department is still reviewing the request. The department says the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has sent a letter confirming that groundwater monitoring results at the site were adequate.
The council is also scheduled to consider adopting rules on compliance and on carbon monetary offsets, and staff plan to ask the council for policy direction on rules about applicants' financial expertise and retirement assurance. The agenda will post on the council's meetings page.
On the first evening, the council holds a public hearing at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, at the Port of Morrow Riverfront Center, 2 Marine Drive, Boardman, and online, on Portland General Electric's request to add up to 200 megawatts of solar on about 860 acres, plus 200 megawatts of battery storage, at its Carty Generating Station, a natural gas plant about 12 miles southwest of Boardman. The department's proposed order recommends approval with new conditions. Comments can be given at the hearing or in writing by 5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 14, through the department's online comment portal (choose "Carty Generating Station Amendment 4"). The public notice says people who want the council to reject or change the order must raise their issues by that deadline, with enough detail for the council to respond.
A gold mine near Hereford
Comments on the Bureau of Land Management's environmental assessment of the Reeds Gulch Mining Plan, a 20-year gold mining plan covering 820 acres of public land near Hereford in Baker County, with mining on about half of that land, are due Friday, Nov. 20, BLM said. BLM prefers comments through the project's NEPA Register page; they can also be mailed or delivered to the BLM Baker Field Office, Attn. Reeds Gulch EA, 1550 Dewey Ave., Suite A, Baker City, OR 97814.
South Dakota
Black Hills Energy rates
The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission on Nov. 4 approved a settlement that lets Black Hills Energy raise electric rates for its South Dakota customers by $27.354 million a year, about 46% less than the roughly $50.6 million the company requested in February, the commission said. Across all customer classes, that is a 21.28% increase in base rate revenue and a 13.62% increase in total bills. A typical residential customer using 650 kilowatt-hours a month will see a bill about $16.34 higher, according to the commission. New rates take effect Tuesday, Dec. 1. Because the settlement is lower than the interim rates charged since Aug. 18, the company will refund the difference with interest, and it agreed not to raise base rates before Aug. 18, 2030.
Chairman Chris Nelson said commissioners discussed whether they could simply say no, but that such a decision "would likely be overturned by the courts because it would not be a decision based on the laws that govern our state." The company cited capital investment, rising operating costs, infrastructure spending and the cost of capital. The settlement was negotiated by commission staff, Black Hills Energy, and the South Dakota Large Customer Group, whose eight members include Monument Health Rapid City Hospital and Pete Lien & Sons. Filings are in docket EL26-003.
Gold exploration near Lead
DTRC LLC of Lead has filed a notice of intent to explore for gold about four miles northwest of Lead in Lawrence County, S.D., according to a South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources notice. The plan calls for 50 new drill pads, each about 200 feet square, with up to 500 holes drilled as deep as 5,000 feet, about 14,760 feet of new roads and trails, and use of about 171,300 feet of existing or previously approved roads and trails. Work is expected to start once the department issues written restrictions. The notice does not set a comment deadline. The filing is on the department's exploration page; Roberta Hudson of the Minerals, Mining, and Superfund Program can be reached at 605-773-4201.
Irrigation water near Spearfish
Clint Krambeck of Spearfish has applied to move 14.7 acres irrigated under a vested water right on Lake Creek, about seven miles northwest of Spearfish, and to take an added 0.15 cubic feet per second to irrigate 75 more acres, according to the public notice for Application No. 2056-1. The state's chief engineer recommends approving the move but denying the added acres and water, finding there is not "a reasonable probability" that unappropriated water is available, that the diversion may impair existing water rights, and that more appropriation from the Spearfish Creek, Redwater River and Belle Fourche River system above the Belle Fourche Irrigation Project diversion is not in the public interest. Petitions and comments are due Monday, Nov. 16, on forms linked from the department's public notices page.
A gas plant near Aberdeen
NorthWestern Energy has applied for a state permit for the Hub City Energy Park, a plant of about 131 megawatts (nominal gross) with three natural gas combustion turbines near Aberdeen, S.D., plus a substation, a power line to the existing Siebrecht substation, and a gas line to the Northern Border Pipeline, according to the commission's notice of application. The company expects construction to start in late 2027 or early 2028 and the plant to come online in the first half of 2030.
How to weigh in: a public input meeting is at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 23, at the Dakota Event Center, 720 Lamont St. S, Aberdeen. Applications for party status are due by 5 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 1, on the form posted in docket EL26-031. The commission accepts written comments from anyone by mail, personal delivery or email until it decides; party status is needed only to present evidence, cross-examine witnesses, or preserve the right to appeal.
Uranium mine water permits
The comment and petition deadline on Powertech (USA) Inc.'s two water permit applications for the Dewey-Burdock uranium project in Custer and Fall River counties passed Monday, Nov. 9. The state Water Management Board is scheduled to consider them at 10:45 a.m. Central time Wednesday, Dec. 2, in the Matthew Training Center of the Joe Foss Building, 523 E. Capitol Ave., Pierre, according to the department's notices for Application No. 2914-2 and Application No. 2915-2.
Montana and North Dakota
Westmoreland Rosebud Mining has asked the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to release part of its reclamation bond on about 452 acres at the Rosebud Mine near Colstrip. Comments are due Friday, Nov. 20, by email to DEQCoal@mt.gov, according to the department's notice.
Objections to the Montana Water Court's interlocutory decree for Basin 43D, the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, must be received by the court on its forms by Monday, Nov. 23, according to the court's notice. Objections for Basin 43Q, the Yellowstone between the Clarks Fork and the Bighorn, are due Tuesday, Dec. 22, according to that notice.
Scoping comments on 52 parcels covering 18,345 acres proposed for a February 2027 Bureau of Land Management sale in the Montana-Dakotas region are due Friday, Nov. 27, through the project's ePlanning page, BLM said. BLM's National Fluid Lease Sale System lists the sale for Feb. 23, 2027, with the sale notice and protest period set to begin Dec. 22.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission hears oil and gas cases at 9 a.m. Central time Wednesday, Nov. 18, and Thursday, Nov. 19, at the Oil and Gas Division, 1000 E. Calgary Ave., Bismarck, with a live audio and video link, according to its hearing dockets. Most of the more than 100 cases are spacing and pooling requests in the Bakken; the Thursday docket also includes continued cases, on the commission's own motion, reviewing pilot enhanced oil recovery injection projects run by Eagle Operating Inc. and Continental Resources Inc.
The Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation's next hearing is at 9 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 10, in its Billings hearing room, 2535 St. Johns Ave., according to the board.
Wyoming and Idaho
The Bureau of Land Management is taking comments on 333 parcels covering 426,064 acres proposed for a March 2027 Wyoming lease sale and the related environmental analysis. The sale's ePlanning page says comments close at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25; BLM's news release gives Nov. 26, so commenters may want to use the earlier date. Scoping on 104 parcels covering 123,166 acres for a June 2027 Wyoming sale runs through Friday, Nov. 27, on that sale's ePlanning page. BLM's December Wyoming sale, of 172 parcels covering about 249,573 acres, is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 9, BLM said; its protest period closed Oct. 28.
BLM will offer 35 geothermal parcels covering nearly 113,330 acres in Boise, Cassia, Clark, Elmore, Lemhi, Owyhee, Twin Falls and Washington counties in an online sale through EnergyNet on Tuesday, Nov. 17, BLM said.
The U.S. government sued Idaho, the Idaho Department of Water Resources and its director, Mathew Weaver, in federal court on Sept. 11, seeking to throw out a curtailment order that would apply to Idaho National Laboratory and to bar the department from administering federal water rights, according to the complaint. The complaint says the Department of Energy holds a federal reserved water right of 35,000 acre-feet a year for the laboratory and argues that federal installations are "shielded by the Supremacy Clause from direct state regulation" unless Congress clearly authorizes it. The order at issue, entered May 14, curtails groundwater rights junior to Oct. 11, 1900.
The state denied the claims and countersued on Oct. 16, the Idaho Capital Sun reported. "The federal government gets no special treatment under Idaho law," Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a statement, according to the Sun, and the state argues that the 1952 McCarran Amendment waives federal immunity on water, the Idaho Statesman reported in a story republished by EastIdahoNews.com. Gov. Brad Little's office said the state "continues to work responsibly with the Department of Energy toward a mitigation plan," the Sun reported.
Further out
The Bureau of Land Management has proposed revising the rules it uses to write and amend resource management plans, which were first adopted in 1979 and have been updated twice since. In a news release, the Department of the Interior said the changes would update terms, remove duplicate requirements and give BLM "more flexibility" in designating Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. BLM Director Steve Pearce said the current process is "too slow, too complicated and weighed down by outdated requirements." Comments on the proposed rule, published Nov. 10, are due Monday, Jan. 11, at regulations.gov, docket BLM-2026-0298, or by mail to Bureau of Land Management, Director (630), Attn: RIN 1004-AF53, 1849 C St. NW, Room 5646, Washington, DC 20240. Comments on the rule's information collection should go to the Office of Management and Budget by Thursday, Dec. 10. BLM will hold an online information session at 5 p.m. Mountain time Thursday, Dec. 3; registration is linked from the release.
