Ruling threatens reclamation law: Gene Wirtz (Bismarck Tribune)
North Dakota has the strongest law in the United States on restoration of mined farmland, but the state Supreme Court’s recent Coal Lake ruling threatens to gut the law.The court upheld the Public Service Commission’s decision that recreation was a “higher and better” use for 86 acres of mined land than raising crops.That verdict exempts the coal company from meeting the farm productivity standards we expected of it.