Colstrip (Colstrip)
 |
Colstrip was established by the Northern Pacific Railway in 1924 as a company town to provide coal for their steam locomotives. The mining at Rosebud Mine two miles south of the town is open pit strip mining, where draglines remove soil above the layer of bituminous coal from the Fort Union Formation.
During The Second World War, the Colstrip mine was identified as strategically important because it supplied coal for the Northern Pacific Railway steam locomotives hauling military equipment for the war effort. The mine was guarded from sabotage, and the employees were not allowed to quit their jobs.
In 1958, the railroad switched to using diesel locomotives and the Colstrip mine was shut down. In 1959, Montana Power Company purchased the rights to the mine and the town, and resumed mining operations in the 1970s with plans to build coal-fired electrical plants.
The power plants were built in the 1970s and 1980s by a collection of contractors including Bechtel. During this construction period, Colstrip was a boomtown, with a large increase in population. Plants 1 and 2 became operational in 1975 and 1976, and plants 3 and 4 became operational in 1984 and 1986.
In 1974, construction of Colstrip's 150 acre Castle Rock Lake (formerly named surge pond) was completed. The Colstrip plants produce electricity from coal using steam. The water for the steam is pumped in an underground pipe 30 mi from the Yellowstone River and stored in the lake. The lake is stocked with fish and the home for a wide variety of wildlife.
In 1990, the Colstrip Energy Limited Project started commercial operations. Located six miles (10 km) north of Colstrip, this experimental electricity production facility is owned by Rosebud Energy Corp., a partnership that at one point included Enron. The plant uses high sulfur waste coal from the Rosebud Coal Mine's topmost one foot layer of coal.
In 1998, plants 1-4 were sold to a group led by PPL Corporation (PPL) and Puget Sound Energy (PSE). The Rosebud Coal Mine was sold to Westmoreland Mining LLC. In this same year, the City of Colstrip was incorporated.
In June 2015, PPL spun off its power generation assets including the Colstrip plants to become Talen Energy.
In 2016, Puget Sound Energy reached an agreement with the Sierra Club and the Montana Environmental Information Center to shut down units 1 and 2 of the coal-fired generating plant by the year 2022. The agreement said nothing about the status of Units 3 and 4 at the generating station. However, the existing electrical transmission capacity that transmits power from Colstrip to the Pacific Northwest may be used to transmit wind energy.
Map - Colstrip (Colstrip)
Map
Country - United_States
 |
 |
| Flag of the United States | |
Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Americas for thousands of years. Beginning in 1607, British colonization led to the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies in what is now the Eastern United States. They quarreled with the British Crown over taxation and political representation, leading to the American Revolution and proceeding Revolutionary War. The United States declared independence on July 4, 1776, becoming the first nation-state founded on Enlightenment principles of unalienable natural rights, consent of the governed, and liberal democracy. The country began expanding across North America, spanning the continent by 1848. Sectional division surrounding slavery in the Southern United States led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining states of the Union during the American Civil War (1861–1865). With the Union's victory and preservation, slavery was abolished nationally by the Thirteenth Amendment.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| USD | United States dollar | $ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| EN | English language |
| FR | French language |
| ES | Spanish language |