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Thursday, May 1, 2014
Coalition Calls on Interior Department to Reject Utah Coal Lease
More Mining Threatens to Collapse Public Lands, Endanger the Climate
Contact: Jeremy Nichols (303) 437-7663
Salt Lake City, UT—WildEarth Guardians today joined a coalition of allies in calling on the federal government to cancel plans to approve a new coal mine expansion in central Utah that threatens to undermine valuable wildlife habitat and streams, and fuel global warming.
“These latest coal plans portend disaster for Utah’s public lands, for our climate, and for our clean energy future,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program Director. “While President Obama is calling for action to combat climate change, the Interior Department seems to be doing everything it can to appease the coal industry and rubberstamp as much mining as possible in the American West.”
The Greens Hollow coal lease would expand the SUFCO underground coal mine located in the Wasatch Plateau of central Utah. SUFCO is the largest coal producer in Utah. The mine’s owner, Kentucky-based Bowie Resources, sell the coal to nearby power plants, including the Hunter and Huntington plants, but is also increasingly exporting coal to Asia through ports on the West Coast.
The new lease would add 56.6 million tons of coal underlying more than 6,000 acres of National Forest land to the mine, extending its life for eight years. When burned, this coal would unleash more than 120 million tons of carbon, equal to the amount released annually by 23 million cars.
The Greens Hollow coal lease is one of several leases proposed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Interior Department agency tasked with managing federal coal, in the American West, and comes as Interior is under fire for illegally selling coal below fair market value.
In oversight reports released in 2013 and in early 2014, investigators specifically found that in Utah, the Bureau of Land Management was illegally negotiating coal prices with industry and failing to take into account the environmental and economic implications of coal exports.
Located underneath the Fishlake and Manti-La Sal National Forests, the SUFCO mine has been a disaster for public lands and fish and wildlife. Using longwall mining techniques, the mine has caused major subsidence in the area, fracturing the ground, toppling trees, triggering rock slides, and draining local streams. Imperiled fish and wildlife, including the sage grouse and Colorado River cutthroat trout, have been impacted to the point that the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service predict that mining the Greens Hollow lease will cause the extinction of these species in the area.
In detailed comments, Guardians, joined by the Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity, called on both the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to scrap the Greens Hollow lease. In 2012, the groups appealed a prior Forest Service approval of the Greens Hollow lease and forced the agency to withdraw its decision.
Under federal law, the Bureau of Land Management has no obligation to approve the lease and the U.S. Forest Service has complete discretion to prohibit federal coal leasing under National Forests.
Guardians and its allies called on the agencies to reject the lease due to its climate impacts, impacts to wildlife, impacts to potential wilderness areas, and because its link to coal exports.
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