SALT LAKE CITY — The Sierra Club is threatening another lawsuit to turn back a strip mine at the backdoor to Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park.
“It would be like putting a strip mine next to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon. People would be outraged,” Bruce Hamilton, deputy executive director for the Sierra Club, said Wednesday. “We’re trying to make this a national issue.”
A group of Florida investors already is stripping coal from private land near Bryce Canyon, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has set the stage for the company to mine another 50 million tons of coal on 3,500 acres of surrounding public lands.
Hamilton traveled to Salt Lake City for the federal agency’s fifth and final hearing Wednesday night.
The BLM set some conditions for a mining expansion more than five times in size with an environmental study released Nov. 4. Officials acknowledged the project would have significant environmental impacts. The agency has yet to make a determination.
“The BLM is at the crux of a decision: Should it hold a lease sale?” said Stephen Bloch, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness. “Now’s the time that BLM can say no to Alton Coal. If they issue the lease, it will be harder for us to stop it.”
The mine’s operator, Alton Coal Development LLC, said it is supplying coal to a central Utah power station with more than 300 truck trips a day on scenic highways.
Alton issued a statement Wednesday that touts the jobs and payroll that a larger strip mine would bring.
“The federal coal lease will extend the life of the mine by up to 25 years,” the company said.
Hamilton said the Sierra Club will sue the BLM if the agency decides to hold a lease sale. “We are trying to make them make the right decision without going to court.”
The strip mine has gained a foothold 10 miles from Bryce Canyon, a park celebrated for its sparkling night skies, clean air and orange hoodoos — tall, skinny sandstone spires.
The park’s superintendent has objected, and leading environmental groups are asking the Utah Supreme Court to halt the mining that started on 440 acres of private land. The court is expected to hear the case late next year.
Opponents, including the National Parks Conservation Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council, argue that the Coal Hollow Mine and trucks are kicking up dust, muddying seeps and wet meadows and destroying sage grass that feeds a large deer herd.
They also argue Utah regulators illegally approved the mine by ignoring the damage.
Los Angeles is the beneficiary of much of Utah’s coal-fired power, Hamilton said.
“But you don’t have to get coal from a strip mine right next to a national park. Utah is being treated as an energy colony. It will be holding the bag for a strip mine mess later.”
The Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining says it followed all legal and technical requirements in approving the initial 440-acre mine.
The regulators’ approval came after the developer donated $10,000 to Republican Gov. Gary Herbert’s campaign and complained regulators were taking too long to approve the project.
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