grass and has some coal under it--you could probably relinquish this to 

 the coal company to be utilized and not really unduly harm your economic 

 unit. However, if you have 2,000 acres of hay land right in the middle of 

 your winter country that's a vital segment of your operation and this is all 

 they desire--and it might partially be owned by the Burlington Northern 

 Railroad on the surface and in all probability in our particular area at 

 least half of the coal under it is owned by the Burlington Northern 

 Railroad and the other half is owned by the federal government--it 

 presents a completely different proposition. You're faced with having to 

 resolve how your going to adapt your operation to cover or to take care of 

 the change. Everybody has a different philosophy and it's a good thing, 

 but they try to adapt technologies and innovative ideas for the particular 

 resources they have available to them from an agriculture standpoint. A 

 major change in this scheme not only holds a great deal of uncertainity but 

 there are some economic considerations that you have to deal with also. 

 What I am trying to point out here again is that it's not just as simple as 

 reclaiming the land and putting cows back on it. In the 20-year time 

 frame that this mining operation may be disrupting your economic unit, 

 you've got to continue to make a living and I think it's important that, for 

 the most part, landowners in eastern Montana are only entitled to surface 

 damage and they've got to negotiate and scratch and scream and kick to 

 acquire that. There are some isolated circumstances where the coal is 

 owned by the surface owner and it's much more easy for him to rationalize 

 filling his pockets with money and going off into the sunset somewhere. 

 But there are some philosophical attitudes that are a little bit disturbing to 

 me. 



Another grave concern of course, from an environmental standpoint, 

 is surface and ground water. I once said several years ago had we 

 consulted some of the state hydrologists to come down and begin to 

 implement some background studies so we would know down the road, after 

 the mining had begun, whether there was any damage or whether we were 

 being unduly concerned. There was a great reluctance on the part of all 

 of them to get involved and we finally went to a couple of our local coal 

 companies and explained our concern to them and in a manner they 

 understood. They could foresee that there was some advantage to them 

 also, and finally between the two of us we got the state people on the 

 scene. But I made the statement at that time that there was something 

 spooky going on here. Either these hydrologists know a lot about this 

 ground water and surface water thing and are afraid to tell us what they 

 know or they don't know anything at all. And there wasn't much 

 consolation in either one of those alternatives to me. I think for the most 

 part the situation is still similar to that. Probably when it is determined 

 whether there is a problem, it will be too late to do anyting about it or 

 hopefully, down the road there will be no problem. It's an uncertainity 

 that we in agriculture are faced with over the long term. 



Another aspect of coal development in our area is the conversion of 

 coal to some power source. Of course the most common method at the 

 present time in doing that is steam-fired power plants, of which we have 

 two now at Colstrip and two more under construction. Recognizing that 

 industry has done a lot of improving in the last few years as far as 

 abatement equipment in their efforts to clean up the emissions from these 



