Our Approach to Water
Arch is committed to protecting, maintaining, and enhancing water resources across its business. We go to great lengths to develop and deploy effective, proactive measures that limit the impact of our operations on water withdrawal, water quality, and aquatic habitats.
Each operating location takes a specific, tailored approach to water quality management based on a comprehensive water balance.
The Arch team employs a suite of tools for efficient and accurate data management associated with treatment systems, run-off controls and other water quality inspections. Arch’s water management program is enhanced through employee training and awareness and broad implementation of real-time alert systems.
Through ongoing and systematic monitoring and reviews of each operation’s water management processes, Arch’s environmental professionals regularly identify opportunities to protect water resources and improve water management. This process includes ongoing groundwater and surface water monitoring, proactively diverting flows around active mining operations, and reducing the footprint of process areas to reduce potential impacts to stormwater.
Arch and its subsidiaries are engaged in continuous efforts to protect water resources and improve water management.
Environmental Management System
For more than a decade, Arch has been operating in conformance with an EPA-approved Environmental Management System (EMS), modeled after the ISO 14001-2015 EMS standard. Under our EMS, we require each subsidiary facility to maintain full compliance with applicable environmental regulations and to monitor that performance in alignment with the continual improvement cycle of Plan/Do/Check/Act. Each operation regularly reviews its applicable regulatory framework and its environmental operating risks, ranks those risks, and mitigates accordingly. Each operation regularly performs self-evaluations of compliance performance, and that performance, and those self-evaluations, are supplemented by corporate environmental compliance assessments and third-party reviews, undertaken to minimize the risk of noncompliance and environmental harm. The EMS is designed to drive continual improvement, with emphasis on risk reduction and environmental performance improvement. In addition to our EMS, Arch’s Leer mine achieved third-party verification to the TSM Water Stewardship Protocol, further enhancing an already robust water management program.
Annual environmental plans are developed by each facility and incentives for outstanding environmental performance are awarded. Underpinning the overall environmental program, Arch uses industry-leading environmental management information systems (EMIS) to assist in managing and tracking environmental data; compliance obligations; audit findings and corrective actions; and regular internal reporting of environmental activities as well as sustainability data. Arch continues to build out the capabilities of its EMIS programs to improve the efficiency of compliance assessments, reduce the risk of environmental harm, and track key sustainability metrics.
Extraordinary Compliance Record
Arch performed more than 90,000 water-quality tests without a single exceedance
Through the application of its EMS and its sharp focus on water quality management, Arch has achieved an extraordinary compliance record. Arch and its subsidiaries have currently operated for a period of more than four years without a single water quality exceedance despite the frequent occurrence of extreme and fast-moving weather conditions in the mountainous terrain of Appalachia and at-times extreme snowpack conditions in the American West. In 2023, Arch performed more than 90,000 water quality tests without a single water quality exceedance.
Water Conservation and Recycling
Arch subsidiary operations employ a wide array of strategies to reduce water usage. The company’s subsidiary operations recycle and reuse water from on-site sources in the coal washing and preparation process, in road-dust suppression activities, and in other essential tasks. Closing the water loop and reducing water discharge points not only reduces the need for obtaining additional water resources, but also lowers the risk of environmental impact.
Arch subsidiary operations have invested significant effort in conserving and recycling water to reduce the need to access fresh water resources. In 2023, Arch subsidiaries recycled more than 2.2 billion gallons of water, thus avoiding withdrawing a commensurate amount of fresh water from surrounding water sources. These are “gallons avoided” and constitute saving approximately 42 percent of the water that otherwise would have been withdrawn to run Arch’s subsidiary operations.
The company continues to explore ways to manage the number of constructed discharge points it must maintain and monitor. Through an intense focus on completing robust mine reclamation activities, Arch has eliminated more than 500 constructed outfalls in the past five years and continues this effort today. Arch currently maintains and monitors 190 constructed discharge points, down from 368 a year ago, reducing potential future impacts on water resources.
Beginning with 2020, Arch is accounting for its operational water usage according to the guidelines published by the International Council on Mining and Metals as “A Practical Guide to Consistent Water Reporting (2017).” This framework provides methods for quantifying water inputs to a mine’s operation, outputs back to the environment, water consumed by the processes, and recycled water streams, which constitute clean gallons avoided.
2023 Water Usage
Water Accounting in 2023
(in millions of gallons, for Arch and its subsidiary operations)*
| Water Input (Withdrawn) | Water Recycled | Total Water Used (Withdrawn + Recycled) | Water and Wastewater Discharged | Water Consumed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,120 | 2,229 | 5,349 | 2,352 | 1,505 |
* These numbers are best estimates available at the time of writing this report. Arch continues to refine its data collection and reporting processes, and these numbers will change as the models evolve.
Water Withdrawn by Source in 2023
(in millions of gallons, for Arch and its subsidiary operations)*
| Surface Water | Groundwater | Municipal Water | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 811 (26.0%) | 2,264 (72.6%) | 45 (1.4%) | 3,120 (100%) |
* These numbers are best estimates available at the time of writing this report. Arch continues to refine its data collection and reporting processes, and these numbers may change as the models evolve.
According to the Water Resources Institute website, and based on the fact that all Arch subsidiary operations are within the United States, Arch has no operations that are within regions with “high or extremely high baseline water stress,” and therefore none of our water is sourced from regions with “high or extremely high baseline water stress.”
Of all the water recycled and reused by Arch subsidiary operations, 100 percent of that volume is recycled back through the same process at the same facility or through a different process at the same facility. Zero percent is reused by a different Arch subsidiary facility or non-Arch facility.
