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Show UPL Request For Coal Lease Triggers Protests ESCALANTE - Utah Power and Light Company has asked the Bureau of Land Management to exchange its preference right leases in Kaiparowits for leases on comparable coal deposits In Carbon and Emery counties, ac rording to Garfield County com missioners. The action stirred protests at a meeting of the Garfield County residents held by the Utah Energy Conservation and Development Council to discuss a proposed power plant in the Escalante area by another group. Utah Rescources International Inc ana Phelps-Dodge Corp., attracting about 175 persons Eight members of the council, and Reed Searle, its executive-secretary, toured the primary site at Alvey Wash, 10 miles south of Escalante where Utah Resources proposes to build a 400-megawatt. coal-fired power plant with the coal that is located about 800 feet below the surface. John Morgan Jr.. president of Utah Rescources, has asked the council to prequalify the site, determining if there are many serious objections to it, before the partners invest further capital. The group has leased state land with coal resources in the area and hope to block up its holdings, through land exchanges with the Bureau of Land Management, to make an economical, life supporting unit for the plant development. UP&L has preferred-rights lease applications on adjacent BLM land in the same area containing an estimated 400 million tons of mineable coal. At one time UP&L proposed a plant in the same area, but found that a 400-megawatt plant, costing about $300 million, is the maximum that could be built there without running into air quality violations, according to Val A. Finlayson, UP&L research director, contacted in Salt Lake City. He said the company considered such a small plant economically impractical and abandoned the idea, but has sought ever since, along with other Kaiparowits leaseholders, to find a market for the coal deposits elsewhere Finlayson said that the department has refused for eight years to actually grant the Kaiparowits leases to UP&L. so the company has been compelled to go elsewhere. He added that they were going to need coal for the Emery fourth unit by 1985 and the plant at Wellington, Carbon County, by 1987, if they decide to fio there and for a possible Green River plant after that. Because it takes between eight to 10 years to develop mine, he said they could tell they could produce no coal before 1988 They abandoned the Kaiparowits source, not necessarily permanently, for if the production there was ever cleared, he said they would want to go in again. Of the 175 people attending the meeting only three persons indicated opposition to the Utah Resources plant proposal and the UP&L pullout was protested. Garfield County Commissioner Wallace Ott critized UP&L's lease transfer request, saying.' We think their plant ought to be here and they should keep their leases here," he added,"We should develop our own resources." Dr. George Hill, energy council co-chairman, explained time had run out for UP&L. compelling it to look to Carbon-Emery to meet its coal needs in the near term Hill stated that as soon as supplies of oil and gas become more scarce and prices get higher and higher the coal development of this area would begin. "And I can't see that it will be very long before this happens." he added. Escalante Mayor Dale Marsh, speaking in support of the proposed Utah Resources project, said there is ample water supply to allow the development of the plant He said the plant couid double the town's present population, bringing the number back to the 1.300 residents it had before 1941 and still be able to take care of them He and other specialists said the town was well prepared to handle the influx and would welcome it. Calvin Hampton stated that the prepayment of sales tax was made a law in 1975 that funding to build the plant could come from these sources. Escalante Lion's Club representative stated that several years ago they filed on Escalante river for sufficient secont feet of water that could be used for a power plant "I wish the environmentalists would allow us to have the same opportunities they enjoy in the cities where they live. And I'd like to see them try to live on $400 a month, like many of us do," the mayor commented |