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Congressmen, tell us again how coal will help our climate crisis? • Daily Montanan [1]

['George Ochenski', 'Daily Montanan Staff', 'Jim Edwards', 'More From Author', 'July', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']

Date: 2025-07-11

There was a time in this fair state when the rivers ran gin clear over shining freestone beds, when you could cast a fly and have large cutthroat, rainbow, brown or brook trout readily rise. In some places, you could even find the now nearly-extinct Fluvial Arctic Grayling.

But now the rivers are so low and hot the struggle is just to keep the fish alive, let alone deal with the neon green algae now coating those freestone beds on every major river.

How did we get here?

Well, more than 50 years ago the Montana Power Company announced the construction of its coal-fired generation plants at Colstrip. Despite considerable opposition by nearby residents, farmers, ranchers, and many, many others, Montana Power brazenly claimed Colstrip would be “the boiler room for the nation.”

Now, thanks to the continuing operation of arguably the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants, the planet, the nation — and Montana’s world-famous rivers and streams — are indeed boiling.

The evidence is undeniable that continuing to burn coal and spew endless tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has and continues to create our global climate crisis. Yet, for some bizarre reason Montana’s governor and congressional delegation — as well as most of their GOP colleagues in Congress and the Legislature — refuse to acknowledge that truth.

The result is equally undeniable: The mounting problems being faced by farmers and ranchers as well as rivers, forests, fish, wildlife and the public are directly connected to the continuing use of fossil fuels — among which coal leads the pack for atmospheric greenhouse gas pollution.

While our science-deprived president blathers about “beautiful clean coal” the fact is, that’s just another in his tens of thousands of lies. There is no clean coal. None.

If Montana’s congressional delegation and governor want to run around in red MAGA hats and kowtow to the president’s fictions about clean coal, I’m sure no one would much care — if only the rest of us didn’t have to pay the ever-growing price for their foolish political charade. And make no mistake, we are paying that price every day in every way.

The temperatures surpassed 90 degrees in Montana in May. May, not August. Normally the mountains would still be covered in their winter white in May. And June, traditionally our wettest month, would begin to melt that snowpack and provide the clear, rushing runoff flows that scour our riverbeds to keep them healthy for our once-famed and ever-more-rare functioning coldwater aquatic ecosystems.

But once again, as the successive drought years stack up, we have extremely high temperatures and extremely low flows in our rivers and streams, miles-long algae blooms and temperatures that are lethal for our coldwater fisheries. In the meantime, as our forests bake and burn our populace swelters in a state where air conditioning was once considered unnecessary.

So here’s the challenge to Gov. Greg Gianforte, Reps. Ryan Zinke and Troy Downing, Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy: Tell us how burning more coal, which you all support, is going to get us out of this mess.

Tell us how more coal pollution is going to lower the temperatures, provide more snowpack, give us back our longer winters, springs, and falls instead of the inferno to which you have damned us.

I can assure you, your fellow Montanans are waiting to hear how burning more coal is going to stop the raging climate crisis that is killing our rivers, streams, fish, wildlife, forests and crops.

We want our “old Montana” northern-tier climate again, not some MAGA fever dream.

So please don’t hold back — we’re all ears, and we’re waiting.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2025/07/11/congressmen-tell-us-again-how-coal-will-help-our-climate-crisis/

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