Golden Eagle Mine

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Golden Eagle Mine is an operating coal mine in Illinois, United States.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Golden Eagle Mine	Illinois, United States	38.018611, -89.454722 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the coal mine:

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Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	–	–

Table 3: Operation details

Note: The asterisk (*) signifies that the value is a GEM estimated figure.

Capacity (Mtpa)	Production (Mtpa)	Year of Production	Mine Type	Mining Method	Mine Size (km2)	Mine Depth (m)	Workforce Size
–	0.4209337008	2023	Surface	–	–	75*	29

Table 4: Coal resources and destination

Total Reserves (Mt)	Year of Total Reserves Recorded	Total Resources (Mt)	Coalfield	Coal Type	Coal Grade	Primary Consumer/ Destination
–	–	–	Illinois Basin	Bituminous	–	–

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
Knight Hawk Coal LLC	CBR LLC [49.5%]	USA

Note: The above section was automatically generated and is based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker April 2024 release and the September supplement.

Background

Golden Eagle Mine is a coal mine in Percy, Illinois, United States. The mine is pursuing a 160-acre strip of land to expand coal mining near Pyramid State Park, Illinois' biggest state park.

During their spring session 2011, Illinois lawmakers signed off on a plan for the state to lease the strip at the edge of Pyramid State Park to Knight Hawk, who hope to use the land as a staging ground for a 240-acre strip mine just outside the 20,000-acre park, if a deal can be worked out with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The company also would carve for coal underneath the public area.

The measure was delivered in June 2011 to Gov. Pat Quinn. In August 2011, Gov. Quinn approved the new Golden Eagle surface mine.

Pyramid State Park was derived from a coal company that once existed there. The park's original 924 acres, much of it previously strip mined, were acquired in 1968 from Southern Illinois University, which had used the land for research. Most of modern-day Pyramid had been mined before, from the 1930s through the early 1990s.

Illinois does not allow mining or logging in its state parks, and allowing it in Pyramid State Park — much of it former mining land that has been reclaimed — would be a first, state Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Januari Smith said, who added that the agency had taken "a neutral position" on the legislation.

Terms of proposed mine

Under the plan, Knight Hawk would lease at fair market value a small portion of the park — which draws about 400,000 visitors annually — for a decade to adhere to a federal law requiring that coal not be mined within 300 feet of park land. As part of the venture near Pinckneyville, a 5,500-resident town about 70 miles southeast of St. Louis, most of the mining actually would take place off park land, in 240 acres of private land now home to maturing wheat.

Using a giant mechanical extractor, the mining company would also bore up to 1,000 feet into the walls of the pit next to the park to get at additional coal. Knight Hawk estimates extracting 500,000 tons of coal a year from the site for roughly seven or eight years, adding to the 4.5 million tons the 15-year-old company now produces each year at five other mines in the region.

Part of the park also would be leased out for storage of the dirt that will be dug up and later "restored" to state DNR specifications, perhaps creating more wetlands to make use of the land that's been carved out. Knight Hawk will donate the 240 acres on which the strip mining would take place, land worth $1 million.

The measure's sponsor in the House, Democratic Rep. Dan Reitz of Steelville, some 10 miles from the park, said the coal company's CEO, Steve Carter, approached him to get the bill filed, seeking to strip mine part of the property and chisel out the black ore from beneath the surface elsewhere. Reitz has spent 17 years working the region's underground coal mines.

Governor approves mine

In August 2011, Illinois Gov. Quinn approved H.B. 390, allowing Knight Hawk to lease the 160-acre strip of land in the park for its new Golden Eagle surface mine. The land is privately owned and the first time in Illinois that mining has been approved for a state park. Knight Hawk said it will begin the permitting process for Golden Eagle, which is projected as an approximately 500,000 tpy operation. Mining could commence by summer 2012.

• Operator: Knight Hawk Coal
• Owner: Arch Coal (50%), CBR Investments (50%)
• Location: Pyramid State Park, IL
• GPS Coordinates: 38.018611, -89.454722 (Exact)
• Status: Operating
• Production: 0.388 million tons (2020)
• Total Resource:
• Mineable Reserves:
• Coal type: High-sulfur
• Mine Size:
• Mine Type: Surface and Underground
• Start Year:
• Number of employees:
• Source of Financing:
• MSHA ID:
• Union:

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Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of world coal mines, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Mine Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.