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Show Right-of Ways for UP & L Approved Approval of rights-of-way for facilities related to Utah Power and Light Company's Emery 3 and 4 power project has been jointly announced by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. According to Gary Wicks, BLM Utah state director, and Vern Hamre, Forest Service regional forester, portions of the needed rights-of-way cross federal lands managed by the two agencies. Both Wicks and Hamre noted that granting of the rights-of-way .for segments of the proposed transmission line, coal conveyor, access road and the alternative coal haul road is contingent upon UP&L obtaining other necessary, approvals and would assure the resolution of the access problem in Cottonwood Canyon to allow an adequate public road and livestock driveway past the proposed mine portal development. In approving the rights-of-way, consideration was given to local concerns including in-cluding the need for livestock and recreation access in Cottonwood Canyon and the need to route coal trucks on an alternate route to avoid heavy truck traffic through Orangeville and Castle Dale. UP&L proposes to construct con-struct two 430 megawatt coal-fired electrical power generating units contiguous con-tiguous to two existing units near the town of Castle Dale in Emery County. One of these units is in operation, and the second unit is scheduled to go on line in 1980. The proposed Unit 3 would begin operating in 1983, and Unit 4 in J985. Units 3 and 4 would be built on private land and no federal . authorizing action would be required for the plant site. A proposed 345 kilovolt transmission line, 118 miles long and parallel to an existing line for Emery Unit 1, would deliver power to a substation near Camp Williams, approximately 15 miles south of Salt Lake City. Coal would be mined from two sources. About 1.5 million tons of coal would then be conveyed and trucked to the plant site. About 1 million tons of coal from the existing Deseret-Beehive Deseret-Beehive mines would be mined annually and trucked about 12 miles to the plant site. Approximately 14,000 acre-feet of water annually would' be required for operation of the generating units and this water would come from the Cottonwood and Ferron Creek drainages. During construction con-struction the project would employ a peak of 1,205 persons. Operation of the coal mine, transportation system and generating units would require 588 permanent per-manent employees. Environmental impacts that would result from this project were analyzed in an environmental impact statement completed by the BLM in October, 1979. |