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Show Kaiparovits Power Project In Kane County Converts Permits To Leases Three Southwestern utilities participating in the Kaiparowits Power Project in southern Utah announced that 19 of their 20 federal coal prospecting permits tion takes years of careful analysis ana-lysis and planning before the program can orderly proceed from one stage to the next. have recently been converted to leases. In a joint statement, the subsidiaries subsi-diaries of Arizona Public Service Company, San Diego Gas and Electric Company, and Southern California Edison Company, said exploratory drilling conducted over a two-year period indicated the existence of coal in commercial commer-cial quality to justify the conversion conver-sion to leases. The 19 leases involve some 38,-690 38,-690 acres in Kane County. Officials Offi-cials said action on the remaining remain-ing permit, involving 658 acres, is expected to be taken early i this year. The three investor-owned utilities util-ities have proposed to invest some $600 million in a coal mining min-ing operation and power plant which could ultimately generate 5,000,000 kilowatts. The companies are presently negotiating with the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation on terms of a contract con-tract to withdraw water from Lake Powell to be used for the power project. The water in question ques-tion is 102,000 acre feet officially allocated to the project by the Utah State Engineer in September, Septem-ber, 1965. Officials said the conversion from prospecting permits to leases means that the program is now phasing from the field exploratory ex-ploratory stage to one of evaluation eval-uation of estimated mining costs. Studies also are continuing on mining methods to be used and means of transporting the coal to the proposed plant site. The companies pointed out that a project of this gigantic propor- |