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Show Pipeline company issued a cease and desist order By JUDY JENSEN Asst. Managing Editor r A few Indian's may have done what scores of politicians, politi-cians, lawyers and concerned citizens could not, stopped the pipeline. Kern River Gas Transmission Co. has been issued a cease and desist order until the problems created when the company bulldozed three Indian archaeological sites have been mitigated. The sites in southern Utah are three of 392 identified as archaeologically significant along the 900 mile route of the natural gas pipeline which will stretch from Wyoming to California crossing through Mueller Park east of Bountiful along its way. Since the project was announced in 1985, petitions have been circulated, suits have been filed and bills have been introduced in Congress to stop the pipeline. To date, all of those efforts have failed. But the Utah Division of State History advised the Utah Attorney General's office to inform representatives represen-tatives of Kem River that action against them will be taken if the company does not adequately address the archaeological issue. Cuba Waddlington, executive vice president of Kem River, said the company received a faxed copy of the letter from the attorney general's office Thursday. "The letter simply indicates they think certain deficiencies defi-ciencies are occurring and they want us to correct them." Waddlington said. "I think we have procedures in place to protect the cultural resources,' Waddlington said. He added the plan he was referring to was not approved by state agencies until after construction began in January. The damage to the three sites occurred in early January. At that time, Kem River discounted the damage of the sites referring to it as "insignificant Waddlington said he does not think the cease and desist order halts pipeline construction. "All we think it means is that we are not to conduct any more treatment on archaeological archae-ological sites until this is resolved." He said the "treatment" of archaeological sites included recovering recover-ing artifacts and turning them over to designated museums. mu-seums. Waddlington said if the construction crews reach the next archaeological sites before the matter is resolved, "We'll skip around them." He said the company plans to "sit down with the agencies in the very near future. We feel we've already spoken to and resolved the differences," he said. . Farah Mahi, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said Kem River has been asked to respond to charges from the Utah Division of State History that the company "has breached an obligation to protect the cultural resources, and to comply with all state and federal fed-eral laws." Mahi said Kem River must respond "or we will consider con-sider taking legal action against them which could include in-clude criminal penalties." Tom Roberts, assistant state attorney general asked Kem River in his letter to the company to provide a mitigation plan "showing how you propose to reconstruct the nature of the artifacts and information originally at the sites from what remains after the disturbances." "We don't want to interfere with economic development," de-velopment," Mahi said, "but we're going to enforce the law." |