OCR Text |
Show Department of Interior offers leases on coal in Utah-New Mexico SALT LAKE CITY -Targets to offer between 2.8 and 3.6'billion tons of Federal coal in two 1983 lease sales in New Mexico and Utah (with minor tonnages in Colorado) were announced an-nounced recently by Dr. Garrey E. Carruthers, Department of the Interior In-terior assistant secretary for land and water resources. The leasing targets were, set alter considering con-sidering the' recommendations recom-mendations of regional coal teams and after consulting with the governors of Utah and New Mexico. Deter mining the targets is one of the first steps toward offering between 1.2 and 1 .5 billion tons of coal in the San Juan River Region of New Mexico for a September 1983 lease sale and between 1.6 and 2.1 billion tons in the Uinta-Southwestern Utah Region in December 1983. ..The amount of Federal coal to be offered is intended in-tended to meet the demand for coal reserves in a region and increase competition among coal producers, while permitting per-mitting development of those , reserves with appropriate environmental en-vironmental safeguards, Carruthers said. He added that the Department is committed com-mitted to a policy of making more of the Nation's energy resources available for development, consistent with existing environmental en-vironmental and other resource protection statutes. This policy has the objective of stabilizing the price of energy paid by consumers con-sumers and .reducing dependence on foreign energy sources, Carruthers pointed out. Tracts which could be offered in December 1983 in the Uinta- Southwestern Utah Region are expected to be in central Utah, west-central west-central Colorado, and the Alton area of southern Utah. The Kaiparowits Plateau will not be considered for competitive com-petitive Federal coal leasing until the next regional coal sale in 1986 at the earliest, Carruthers said. The Uinta-Southwestern Uinta-Southwestern Utah Regional Coal Team had recommended that a target in the range of 1.2 to 1.9 billion tons of in-price in-price coal would be feasible. The increase in this target range, to be considered for lease offering, recognized the possibility of offering up to several hundred million tons of coal in the Alton area. This target for Utah is a preliminary target and is subject to revision after a public hearing and further fur-ther comment. A hearing concerning the Unifa-' Southwestern Utah preliminary leasing target will be conducted by BLM April 20, 1982, at 1 p.m. in the Bureau's Utah State Office, 136 East South Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111. Public comments will be received by the Utah office until April 30, 1982. The coal industry had expressed an interest in leasing about 280,000 acres in Utah and 11,000 acres in Colorado, containing about 3.8 billion tons of recoverable coal. About half the interest in central cen-tral Utah and the other half in southern Utah. Current annual coal production in the region is approximately 18 million tons. It is anticipated an-ticipated that production will increase to about 70 million tons annually by 1995. Utah Governor Scott Matheson expressed pleasure with the preliminary target and the plan for the 1983 lease sale. The governor indicated in-dicated that the State had been consulted on the decision and had concurred con-curred with the Department Depart-ment of Interior recommendation. "While the preliminary leasing target does slightly exceed ex-ceed the recommendation recom-mendation of the regional coal team" the Governor said, "it does reflect the concern and interest of the State of Utah and will provide for necessary coal leasing in Central Utah." - The governor said that the State will be working with BLM to select and review those tracts which will be included in the lease sale and to establish the final leasing target. Df primary concern, according to the governor's office, is the ability of Federal agencies to properly review potential lease iracts prior to the sale and the socio-economic impacts associated with future coal leasing and development in the Carbon and Emery county area. |