Proposed by RAM Terminals and backed by Armstrong Energy, the export facility was initially planned to be operating by 2014.

Earlier this year, the New Orleans District of the Army Corps ceased work on the permit application, citing “lack of responsiveness” and pushed the operation date back to late 2014 or early 2015.

The coal terminal, located at Mile Post 61 on the Mississippi near Myrtle Grove, would provide throughput of 6 million tons, with a possible expansion to 10Mt.

The RAM Terminals project would be the fifth coal depot on the Mississippi River in the area, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

Environmental group The Sierra Club strongly opposed the development of the terminal and on Thursday said the terminal was the “poster child” for the currently struggling coal industry.

The Sierra Club said the diversion was critical to restoring the state’s eroding coastal wetlands and protecting the seafood industry, both of which are still recovering from damages from the BP drilling disaster in 2010.

“It makes no sense for Louisiana to allow its wetlands, seafood and citizens to be put at further risk for the benefit of out-of-state coal companies, so that they can sell subsidized American fuel to power factories and jobs in India and China,” The Sierra Club spokesman Devin Martin said.

“The international coal market is declining and citizens are voicing their opposition to projects that are clearly not in their benefit.

“This is not the time for state and local governments to subsidize or support a risky, dirty and damaging industry that has nowhere else to go.”

State officials have not made the approvals process easy, with the DNR issuing a stringent list of conditions the coal facility would have to meet in order to receive state permits to begin operation.

In its Army Corps application RAM Terminal said: “We have taken all steps possible to minimize the amount of wetlands that will be impacted. We have positioned the terminal in a way that avoids impacts.”

It goes on to say that land-bank credits will be used to mitigate “unavoidable impacts”.

A permit request filed with the state DNR estimated that roughly “191.26 acres of upland and 31.33 acres of non-vegetated water bottom may be directly impacted by the proposed work”