Coal Mine For Bryce Canyon? Redford says, “Just say NO”.

The state of Utah has approved an open-pit coal mine to be located just 10 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park. GOP Governor Gary Herbert got the permit fast-tracked… after meeting with the mine’s developers and taking a $10,000 campaign contribution.

“A strip mine is not the sort of canyon tourists are flocking to see,” said Natural Resources Defense Council Lands Program Director Sharon Buccino. “This project threatens the area’s tourism economy. And when our nation is moving towards a clean energy economy to deliver jobs and prosperity, a new coal mine is about the last thing we need.”

Both ugly and stupid

Writing at the Huffington Post, actor/activist Robert Redford goes into eloquent detail as to why this is a bad idea:

Even within Utah’s renowned redrock splendor, Bryce is unique. Nowhere else has the same combination of pink and orange rock fins that gracefully descend into the canyon, sandstone spires that seem sculpted by a giant’s hand, and soaring ponderosa pines that add a splash of green to the red canyon walls….

The West has a long history of outside companies extracting local resources, selling them elsewhere, and leaving nearby communities to clean up the mess often at taxpayer expense. No matter what they might tell you, there is no reclamation plan that can return on open pit mine to a natural, wild state.

Most of the region depends on tourism, and the mine would totally trash the place, from dust fouling the pristine air to coal trucks jamming up the narrow local roads:

Every day, more than 300 heavy-duty trucks will haul coal down the National Mormon Heritage Highway, a narrow two-lane road that meanders through several historic towns, like Panguitch.

Panguitch is a magnet for travelers. The entire original town site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and its streets are dotted with beautiful red brick homes built by the pioneers who followed Brigham Young’s call to settle the valley.

A coal truck will leave the mine every seven minutes around the clock six days a week, bringing traffic, noise, and highly toxic, health threatening diesel fumes into a swath of quiet rural communities.

anguitch, Utah's Main Street

And local business owner Bobbi Bryant points out,

[These trucks] will create high emissions of fine particulate pollution (called PM2.5), which is a health hazard for those that call this area home. The Bryce Canyon National Park superintendent and the District Ranger for Dixie National Forest have voiced worries about air quality, along with citizens and groups throughout Utah and the surrounding states.

Heavy coal trucks also take a huge toll on road maintenance, which the taxpayers end up paying for, not the coal companies.  And because of our cold winters, these repairs will need to be made in the summer, when we have our heaviest tourism traffic.

Bryant also points out that the state’s Division of Air Quality doesn’t have the resources to monitor the mine, and the Division of Water Quality hasn’t even looked at how the mine will disrupt water for everyone in the region.

And also un-needed

Where’s this coal going? It’s not needed locally. Speculation is it’ll be exported. It won’t even help America’s energy needs.

Bulldozers are already working on the Alton Mine site

Jamming it through

The Governor says he didn’t do anything to rush the approval through, but local TV station KSL reports that’s just not true:

… A memo from staff scientist Priscilla Burton (pdf), the team leader, states that Alton Coal “had an audience with the governor on September 17, 2009, with the result that the permitting process will end on October 15, 2009.”

Burton told KSL News by phone she had expected it to take up to 90 days longer, but her bosses told her the governor wanted approval or denial by Oct. 15. So, her team set aside other work and speeded it up, doing everything they would have done anyway, except quicker.

“I think maybe it was speeded up. Maybe the staff felt like the director was putting some pressure on them to get their job done,” Baza says. “I think that’s obviously part of what we have to do as an administrative agency to make sure we’re doing things as quickly and correctly as possible.”

Just say “No”

A consortium of environmental groups  have filed with the Utah Supreme Court to block the mine – The Sierra Club, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council and National Parks Conservation Association.

Travelers come from all over the world to marvel at Bryce's clear night skies, which would be lost as the mine and trucks fill the atmosphere with dust.

“It is disappointingly clear that the Board refused to consider how this mine will irreparably damage Southern Utah,” said Sierra Club organizer Clair Jones. “There is no way the Board should have allowed this mine to go forward if they considered the ways it would devastate small business owners and the air and water quality in Southern Utah. Unless the Utah Supreme Court does what is best for Southern Utah, we are going to see untold damage done so a company can strip mine a dirty, dangerous and outdated fossil fuel.”

NRDC’s Bryant adds, “Our hope is that the Utah Supreme Court will realize the negative impacts of this coal strip mine on the fragile lands and air around Bryce Canyon National Park and the surrounding communities and see what Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining did not.”

But state officials say there’s no provision in state law for anything like proximity to a National Park.

The mining company has already started preparing the ground, so there’s not much time.

You can use this NRDC page to send your comment to Governor Herbert, asking him to reconsider.

(Alton, Utah stop sign photo Some rights reserved by Dave Kliman. The Milky Way Over Bryce Canyon
Credit & Copyright: Ben Cooper, via NASA. Other photos from OnEarth.com)