By Ted McDermott, Helena Independent Record
For a while there, Ed Joiner thought Colstrip was dead.
For nearly half a century, the county seat of Eastern Montana’s Rosebud County, where Joiner serves as a commissioner, has been powered by coal, which has been mined on one side of town and burned on the other.
For decades, the more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity that coal generated was sent west, to Washington and Oregon, where it helped power Seattle, Portland and Spokane. While the electricity went elsewhere, the plant’s power was also felt in town, where it generated hundreds of good-paying union jobs and helped fill the coffers of the state and local governments.
