182705P.pdf   06/01/2021  Casey Voigt  v.  Coyote Creek Mining Co., LLC
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  18-2705
   U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota - Bismarck   
   [PUBLISHED] [Shepherd, Author, with Loken and Stras, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil Case - Clean Air Act. Owners of a large ranch in North Dakota filed 
   suit under the Clean Air Act against Coyote Creek Mining Company for 
   failing to obtain the proper construction permit and to implement the 
   requisite dust control plan. The district court concluded the regulations 
   imposing permitting and dust control requirements did not apply to CCMC's 
   operation. This court affirms. The regulations are ambiguous as to whether 
   a coal pile that is adjacent to the coal processing equipment and is used 
   both for storage and loading coal is "in" the coal processing plant itself 
   to be considered an affected facility and subject to Subpart Y 
   requirements. Applying relevant interpretive guidance, the reasonable 
   interpretation is that because the coal pile occurs before the first 
   hopper, it is not subject to Subpart Y; we do not defer to the NDDOH 
   decision. Judge Stras dissents. 
  
182705P.pdf   11/20/2020  Casey Voigt  v.  Coyote Creek Mining Co., LLC
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  18-2705
   U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota - Bismarck   
   [PUBLISHED] [Shepherd, Author, with Loken and Stras, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Environmental law. The State of North Dakota's permitting 
   decision that a coal pile maintained by defendant is not a part of its 
   coal processing plant and not subject to the EPA's regulations in Subpart 
   Y - Standards of Performance for Coal Preparation and Processing Plants, 
   40 C.F.R. pt. 60 - was entitled to deference, and defendant was not 
   obligated to implement a plan to control dust from the coal pile or to 
   include the dust emitted by the pile in its calculations of the amount of 
   particulate matter pollutants it emitted; the regulations are ambiguous on 
   the point of whether such a coal pile is "in" the processing plant, and 
   the district court did not err in concluding the regulations, combined 
   with EPA guidance, did not resolve the question of whether the coal pile 
   was "in" a coal processing plant for regulation purposes; the district 
   court did not err in determining that the best interpretive aid to 
   determine whether Subpart Y applied to the coal pile was the North Dakota 
   Department of Health permitting decision, which concluded the coal pile 
   was not part of the processing plant and thus not subject to Subpart Y. 
   Judge Stras, dissenting.