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Show ' ifeiWpfA;uViiju&S lAiVrriAiA'iVMiV.v.'.v. times the was forced to reveal they are actually Intending to build a mine size of their original proposal a 25,000-acr- e mine that would generate as much as three million tons of coal per year for at least 40 years. To get to the mine site, a brand new road would be constructed which would head north from Bigwater, Utah, through the Nipple Bench and Warm Creek UWC units, before descending down to Warm Creek Canyon via John Henry Canyon. From there, the road would follow the existing Warm Creek dirt road to the mine site. Many parts of both canyons would literally be reduced to rubble because of the amount of blasting that would d truck traffic. The alternative access road, which be necessary to facilitate miles dozen crosses a through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, is unlikely to be chosen due to the irreconcilable conflicts between Park Service mandates and constant, obnoxious truck transportation associated with the coal mine. The Park Service has come out against mine use of the road through Canyon NRA. Andalex proposes to dig up to three million tons of coal per year out of the Kaiparowits using laborunintensive longwall machines. They plan to load the coal on 130,000-pounmonster trucks (vehicles so unwieldy that many states have banned them), and s in either Iron Springs, Utah, near Cedar City, transport it about 200 miles to rail or Moapa, Nevada, northeast of Las Vegas. If the Andalex plan goes through, one truck would leave die mine every eight minutes, 24 hours a day for the next 40 years, meaning one coal truck will pass any given point along the transportation corridor every three and a half minutes. From the load outs, the coal would be railed to Long Beach, California, where Andalex consortium constructing a new facility a the Port of Los is part of a Japanese-Uto this link in goods export country's capability Angeles. Currently, the weak (such as coal) from here to Pacific Rim nations is inadequate port facilities. The $200 million dollar expansion project funded by the Port of Los Angeles, six coal companies Union Pacific Railroad, Japanese banks, Japanese (at least one of which is not cement companies, and Japanese shipping oil, and trading companies is designed to strengthen that link, consequently spelling doom for the Kaiparowits. Andalex is seeking markets for the Kaiparowits coal in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. of coal per Airtiongh rmrmnriy Andalex claims they only intend to produce 2.8 million tons Andalex's and documents year from the mine, Port of Los Angeles expansion feasibility tons per million to eight own brochures indicate that production could be nearly tripled the devastate would year. Any level of commercial coal development, however, Kaiparowits. lf mine-relate- do d, 42-whe- el load-out- dry-bu- lk S. dry-bul- k US-base- "Zj Increased use of the area once access to it is facilitated would devastate the Kaiparowits. To ensure that the environmental impact statement now being written for the mine considers the wide range of secondary mine impacts on the Kaiparowits, SUWA submitted dozens of pages of scoping comments. During the agency's scoping process, the public submitted even more. Suffice it to say, aU the values which wilderness has sustained in this area to date would be sacrificed by the development of this mine. Roadway to hell The devastating impacts of the Andalex project would by no means be confined to just the Kaiparowits Plateau. Southern Utahs narrow roadways would become a veritable deathtrap, not only for the region's wildlife, but for humans as well The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) expressed grave concerns about the impacts of mine activity in the area on the Faunsaugunt deer herd, which migrates annually between its namesake plateau in southern Utah during the summer and habitat on the Arizona Strip in the winter. UDWR considers the herd extremely valuable to Utah since it is one of the nation's foremost sources of trophy size mule deer. Managers at UDWR believe that the Andalex project, by increasing fourteen times the double-trailtruck traffic along Highway 89 between Big Water and Kanab, will result in substantial deer mortality during migration season. As a consequence of high numbers of deer killed by trucks, UDWR expects it will have to reduce the number of annual permits issued to hunters, adversely impacting hunter success and quality hunts. According to UDWR, the repercussions from this scenario would adversely affect UDWR and Utah, as well as the er continued existence if this herd of deer. d), A wilderness no more To liw11 the Impacts the Andalex project would have on the Kaiparowits wilderness is a cumbersome task. It would be akin to tallying the lost legacy of Glen Canyon when drowned by Floyd Domins folly, the putrid sewer of Lake FowelL How can one describe what is lost when nature's showcase our living museums get swallowed up by n industrialization? The Andalex proposal entails a paved highway where none exists today and an constructed entirely separate corridor across proposed wilderness. along powerlines Their plan calls for mine vents, ancillary roads, communications facilities, and a host of infrastructure sprawled over five areas proposed for wilderness d other designation by the Utah Wilderness Coalition: Nipple Bench, Squaw Canyon, Andalex coal mine would WahweapCoyote Creek, Burning Hills, and Warm Creek. The the Kaiparowits irreversibly impact half the units proposed for wilderness designation in region by the Utah Wilderness Coalition. With the loss of fids wilderness comes the loss of all the values wilderness embellishes be filled up and cluttered by throughout the Kaiparowits landscape. Open space would limited the on human tntrugtans. Regeneration studies previous disturbance at the resources simply will botanical area's fragile proposed mine site show dramatically that the failed soils to regenerate since have not regenerate with any natural diversity. Cryptobiotic the exploratory mining three decades ago. Woody species only have proliferated, mosaic. The chances for successful supplanting the natural herb and fort vegetative are remote at best, and certainly vegetative reclamation in this harsh desert climate unproven. Wildlife habitat, once vibrant, would be fragmented, irreversibly eroding core areas and will desiccate important habitat. Seeps and springs important migration corridors. Mining ical water supply for the area's vulnerable wildlife in this harsh near the mine some and desert climate seasons, the only source of water available would be during and activities. Acid mine drainage would foul the already dried up by mine construction mine area. the scarce sources of surface water in New road access where before there was none will mean increased human visitation and likely lead to increased poaching. In 1992, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) wrote the following regarding the access road across virgin wilderness: this road will destroy a large amount of currently remote wildlife habitat and open the greed-drive- 22-mi- le mine-relate- site-crit- Constructing area to detrimental impacts from humans (heavy vehicle use , poaching, mom roads, pollution)... we strongly urge this mad not be developed. UDWR expressed various other concerns, including impacts to raptor and bat habitat and to reptile dens. facilities d trucks and Night-tim- e lighting, dust, and emissions from the coal and mine trucks of din wakings would would defile now pristine viewsheds. The constant natural of resource quiet further extirpate wildlife and destroy the region's precious Benfoh of the Southern Pahite had this When questioned in the 1970s, to say about proposed coal development on the Kaiparowits: that wM bring destruction and I, as like many of the Southern Paiute Indians, oppose any project created this earth with all God Americans. Native lands of unequal balance to sacred territorial the all living, including plants, trees, and wild life. Each living matter, and he told us to respect we within it; bring upon ourselves injustice animal has a legend behind it, each plant has a spirit God has created. There are sacred that matter if we are not in harmony with respect to each living elements there that have meaning to the Paiute people. Mine development would sever our link with the regions anthropologic, evolutionary, in the area would mean and geologic history. The development of a road infrastructure whether through looting, resources, loss of irreplaceable archeological and paleontological created by access the facilitated visitation easy by or inadvertent destruction by increased the Utah at a the mine to this now remote region. Dr. Jeffrey Eaton, paleontologist observed 20 has for years, Museum of Natural History who has worked in the Kaiparowits out that dinosaur bones Utter the mine site, and that the tail Ufe of Cretaceous Late localities directly through some of the most important fossils in the world. mine-relate- then-Chainna- n J . C 1996 by Frad Swanson and Goidon Swanson Although mitigation is almost never effective, UDWR proposes deer crossing signs (which most drivers disregard), fencing (which would disrupt normal deer migrations), and draining (no thanks) creation of underpasses (identified by UDWR as 89. north of to "improve winter range Highway Not just deer are at risk by this project. In sworn testimony, Jim Carter, Director of five Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, coal haul corridor will encounter the n acknowledged that drivers along the trucks carting in the opposite direction about every four minutes. According to Carter, behemoths, going in the same these same drivers will have to pass one of these MPH 40 as opposed to automobiles are truck 25 minutes speeds direction, every (projected these MPH 55 on travel roads). which routinely Appallingly, Carter testified that in coal mine, his agency never Andalex for the approving the permit application package mortalities accidents for or considered traffic impacts, or the potential along the coal haul route. the monster trucks haul between the mine site and load-ou- t, For much of the will travel on narrow two lane rural highways. In 1980, the Bureau of Land Management released the Kaiparowits Coal Development and Transportation Study to quantify the effects of mine employee and coal truck traffic in southern Utah at transportation-relate- d coal of mine development At the approximate level of coal development various levels proposed by Andalex, the study estimated that Du study area... approximately 125 to 150 man accidents per year could occur in Thus, over the forty year life of the mine, the Andalex project could generate, according to government figures, several thousand accidents on southern Utahs roadways. The gloomy picture painted by this study is virtually parroted in findings by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety GIHS) who found that the double trailer trucks Andalex intends to use are 2 to 3 times as likely as other big trucks to be involved in crashes. IIHS also found that in crashes involving passenger cars and tractor trailers, car There will be adeath occupants are 49 times as likely to be killed as the truck occupants. scheme. Andalex's toll to pay for This reality has not gone unnoticed in some parts of southern Utah. In Hurricane and Cedar City, residents are outraged over five prospect of Andalex turning their communities' The transportation-relate- d toads into death-trapimpacts of the Andalex proposal spurred citizens' group called Taxpayers for Safe Utah Roads. the creation of a Cedar When Andalex first proposed to truck the coal to a nil line in Flagstaff, Arizona, a local with tails between their legs Andalex withdrew its there sent Andalex 200-mi- le 65-to- 200-mi- le s. City-bas- ed running uprising proposal to truck coal through Flagstaff. Hurricane residents, armed with IMS's findings that loaded tractor trailers with hot brakes take three times as far to stop as passenger can, are rightly concerned about Andalex's proposal to send their fleet of coal trucks over State Route 59 through Hurricane. This route descends the Hurricane fault through almost two miles of steep, eight percent coni lined on next pag- e- mtSm m -- |
