From coal to kayaking: Craig plans for life after power plant closure
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CRAIG, Colo. — When Craig Station, a coal processing plant that employs 146 people, first announced its plans to close in 2028, employees were initially pessimistic about a transition to clean energy. But now, some of its employees say they understand the need to shift away from coal.
“We all would rather the plant run clean,” said Travis Sondrol, the plant’s manager.
“What happens here controls what our kids breathe, so the results here are tangible for everyone,” Sondrol said.
The Craig Station, which sits on a hill overlooking its namesake Moffat County town near the Utah and Wyoming borders, consists of three units that burn coal to create energy. The plant provides power for rural communities in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska.
Units one and two are owned and operated between Tri-State, Xcel Energy, PacifiCorp and Platte River Power. Tri-State — a nonprofit cooperative power supplier — has sole ownership and operation of the third unit.
Colorado law requires the state to reduce its carbon emissions by 90% of those used in 2005 by 2030.
As a result, six coal-fueled electrical power plants around the state have agreed to shutter their operations by 2031. The plants are in Craig, Hayden, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Brush and Wellington.
Lee Boughey, Tri-State’s senior communications manager, said while the 2019 law did not force Craig Station to close outright, the legislature’s requirement was too stringent for the station to continue operating and provide affordable power to the communities it serves.
“What we’ve been able to do is look at the legislation and structure a transition that supports our employees, supports the community, achieves the legislative requirements and allows us to keep providing reliable and affordable power,” Boughey said.
The foundation of a rural economy
Craig City Manager Peter Brixius was initially nervous when he heard the governor signed the 2019 legislation into law. Removing the city’s largest employer would surely bring turmoil and necessary change.
“Our biggest employer is the coal plant and the two supporting mines,” Brixius said.
Trapper Mine and Colowyo Coal Mine employed a combined 278 people in 2022, according to the most recent data reported to the state. Craig Station employed 146 people as of August 2024.
Brixius knew the city needed to outline a better path for its economy before the station closed down. Unit one will close in 2025 and units two and three will close in 2028, two years ahead of the original schedule.
“Despite the news of the closure, we knew we weren’t going to let that have any sort of negative impact on our community,” Brixius said.
Brixius said about 2,600 of the city’s 8,000 residents work in Steamboat Springs, about 41 miles away. Steamboat Springs continues to see a rise in housing costs each year, which Brixius said is pushing more of the ski town’s workforce into outlying cities and towns.
Craig, with a population of about 9,000, is one of the largest municipalities near Steamboat Springs. Brixius said the city has inherited Steamboat’s spillover residents.
“Despite word of the plant closing, our population has not been impacted,” Brixius said. Census data show the city’s population has held steady since 2010.
Even though almost half of Craig’s workforce commute to Steamboat Springs, Brixius does not see the city as a “bedroom community,” since ranching, two mines and a power plant prop up much of the town’s economy.
Nevertheless, he said he knew the town needed a multi-pronged plan for housing a commuter-based workforce, replacing its tax base and creating new jobs for the 146 employees whose jobs at the Craig Station would disappear.
Because Craig — Moffat County’s only city — is isolated from other cities, Brixius worries that potential priced-out workers may not have any nearby options for moderately-priced housing.
The city recently converted four motels to apartments and is building a 20-townhome project using the city’s budget, the largest development of its kind in 40 years.
“Even though it doesn’t always feel like it, we are still at the most affordable end of the Yampa Valley,” Brixius said of the Routt and Moffat County areas, named for the river that runs through both municipalities.
“For us to be prepared for the future, we have to have housing. That's a key priority for our community.”
A river recreation hot spot
Craig may have a unique advantage over other coal towns on the Front Range and in the Eastern Plains because of its proximity to the Yampa River. The 250-mile river flows from the south end of Routt County to the Utah-Colorado border in Moffat County, where it conjoins with the Green River just before the Utah border.
The largest and coolest portion of the river snakes through Craig and into Dinosaur National Monument, about 85 miles west of Craig.
Brixius wants to capitalize on the river’s tourism potential.
“We see (the Yampa River) as a major asset in the diversification of our economic base,” Brixius said. “We think that's going to further generate some business activity that will be targeted towards those kinds of activities in Moffat County.”
With the help of $5 million from the federal government, Craig and Moffat County have outlined a promising future for the river: a boat ramp at Loudy-Simpson Park (which was built in May) and a whitewater park east of Loudy-Simpson, which the city hopes to complete by the end of the year.
“We’re hoping to get ahead of that curve and put some of these recreation initiatives in place now so that when the plant closures occur, we can attract tourism to some of these new features,” Brixius said. “We’ll also increase activity through expansion of existing businesses and attraction of new business.”
Though Brixius is confident the Yampa River will play a large role in Craig’s stability, the river has seen a downward trend in its cubic feet per second year over year, despite some outlying years bringing more snow and higher flows. River engineers have sounded the alarm, warning of a drying-up river.
But Brixius believes there’s no time to waste with worry.
“We could sit and worry about that kind of thing but I think most of us in this community don’t have time to worry about climate change activities,” Brixius said. “We try to plan around it.”
Melanie Kilpatrick, the project manager for the Yampa River Corridor Project, said the city has kept a warming climate in mind and tried their best to build around it.
“You may not get the white water components all summer but you'll have some swim holes or benefits to anyone fishing in the river as well,” Kilpatrick said. “We are doing our best to make sure some of these features can still function at lower flows.”
Kilpatrick said the whitewater drop structures are designed to work when the river is between 300 and 1,200 cubic feet per second (cfs). The river usually drops to around 340 cfs at its lowest points in the year, which are usually early fall.
“We’re trying to be educated and mindful about water conditions in the future and trying to plan as best as possible for the project in doing so,” Kilpatrick said.
Kilpatrick said the project is “essential,” for Craig. She and Brixius are hopeful that a whitewater park could attract visitors from around the country.
“The whole goal of the project is to really create economic diversification and resiliency,” Kilpatrick said. “We want to pivot and take advantage of our outdoor assets.”
Settling issues
Since 2019, Tri-State has negotiated with Craig and Moffat County to help mitigate the economic challenges the area would face come 2028. If approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, the settlement would include $22 million Tri-State will donate to the community between 2026 and 2029, with “other anticipated investments providing $48 million in additional benefit to the community between 2028 and 2038.”
Tri-State also has purchased a 145-megawatt solar project under development in Moffat County to be online in late 2025.
The settlement also stipulates that if Tri-State builds a new natural gas plant, it must be built in Moffat County.
Saying goodbye with pride
Marc Jacobsen sees the Craig Station as the “north star,” of the city.
“It’s like everything in this area kind of revolves around whatever's going on at the plant,” said Jacobsen, who has held various jobs at the plant but currently works in information technology.
“In this town, when you get on with Tri-State, you feel like you’ve made it,” Jacobsen said.
Sondrol, the plant’s manager, said seeing the plant from his backyard, watching water vapor rise out of its chimneys and knowing exactly what operations are taking place at any moment is a point of pride for him.
“I live in Craig. I can walk outside and see it,” Sondrol said. “And there’s a lot of pride in knowing the product you’re helping create is available and reliable.”
Sondrol is an electrician by trade. He is currently working on an online bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering through a program at the University of North Dakota.
His plans aren’t solidified for the 2028 closure, but he hopes to put the degree to use, either in a potential Tri-State natural gas plant in Craig or elsewhere in the company, likely in another state.
“What I hope to see is we train people here and then we can utilize them at a gas plant if we can make that come to fruition,” Sondrol said. “We want to hire young people and give them something to be proud of.”
Jacobsen said he chooses to avoid a scarcity, fear-based mindset, and instead focus on what he currently has control over.
“Going through this process has been kind of like experiencing the stages of grief,” Jacobsen said. “It’s change and you can either accept or deny it, but it’s happening either way.”
Ultimately, Jacobsen wants to continue taking pride in the plant’s next four years, though he agrees with the transition away from coal.
“As we get closer to that, the future is really unclear,” Jacobsen said. “But I think people are kind of getting to the acceptance point that we have a great thing here and we’re going to take good care of it while we have it.”