While safety worries from the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse led to 170 layoffs this week, a quiet, eight-year wilderness battle blocked a new — and possibly safer — mine nearby that might create 400 jobs.
Bob Murray, co-owner of Crandall Canyon and Tower/Aberdeen mines where workers were laid off while safety is addressed, is optimistic his UtahAmerican Energy will win that battle soon and open the proposed Lila Canyon Mine, in the Book Cliffs between Price and Green River, by 2010. He says its early operations should be safer than those at older mines.
"There are no wilderness areas there that would be affected," Murray said in a hand-written reply to Deseret Morning News questions. He added that Lila Canyon would be safer than older mines because it would have "no methane gas and shallow cover (of mountainside overhead) for years."
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) begs to differ, saying the mine's possible effects on wilderness have not been studied well. It also says mine plans call for it eventually to be deeper than mines where seismic activity now causes worry.
SUWA attorney Steve Bloch said roads or a rail spur to the mine "could change the character of this wild part of the Book Cliffs." He adds SUWA worries the mining could dry up springs and cause "loss of wildlife habitat that make this a wild and special place." He said plans show the mine may also reach 2,500 feet in depth.
UtahAmerican Energy began seeking permits for the Lila Canyon Mine in Carbon County late in 1998 for a spot near the old Horse Canyon Mine, which closed in 1984. The company needs both federal permits approving plans for underground mining and state permits approving planned use of surface areas.
"The company had both of those in place, for a while, in 2001," said Jim Kohler, chief of the Solid Minerals Branch of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Utah office.
But SUWA challenged the state permit — concerned how the mine might affect the nearby Desolation Canyon Wilderness Study Area and other nearby areas that environmental groups hope Congress will protect as formal wilderness. The mine would run beneath many of them.
Bloch said SUWA contended the state had failed to study sufficiently the effects of the mine on water quality and quantity, surface subsidence, protecting cultural resources and other issues.
The Utah Board of Oil, Gas and Mining eventually agreed, and ordered the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining to rescind the state permit and study those issues more thoroughly. After six years, the division this year finally reissued the permit.
But SUWA again challenged it. "While the company and the state division contend otherwise, we contend that six years later they approved that permit again without getting that data" previously ordered, Bloch said.
The Board of Oil, Gas and Mining is now working through those issues with the company and SUWA to determine if the state permit was properly issued and if work on the mine can begin — or if the permit again should be rescinded and more study done.
"I suspect that (board review) may conclude by the end of 2007, but not anytime sooner," Bloch said.
Meanwhile, Murray says he intends to win the ongoing wilderness battle. "We plan to build it," he wrote about the mine. He added that he hopes to have it open in 2010 and said it would create 400 or more jobs.
(An annual review and forecast of coal by the Utah Geological Survey had less optimistic predictions about new jobs at Lila Canyon. It said, "It could employ up to 200 people and produce up to 4.5 million short tons of coal per year.")
Murray wrote, "This is a critically important project for all Utahns. The coal will be needed to fuel electricity needs. The jobs will be the best."
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