Wilderness Journal :: By Tim Guilfoile




Utah’s High Desert: An Urgent Call


Strip mining for coal is destroying the high desert of southwestern Utah. And if you get to know the desert and its surroundings, you will come to understand what a heinous crime strip mining has become.


From a distance, the high desert of southwestern Utah, in the semiarid foothills of the Colorado Plateau, seems a pitiful place. Even the imagination cannot replace the desolation—devoid of the life, color, and diversity that are assumed to be the foundation of wilderness. But just as you cannot marvel at the darkness by drenching it with light, you cannot see the desert without wading in and touching it with your senses.





Step off into the Great Basin “cold” Desert and discover that its dominant plant life is not subtropical. The flora is both vibrant and varied. Torrey joint-fir, Garrett saltbush, silver buffaloberry, desert olive, forestiera, desert lily, Datil yucca, and small flowered columbine are but a few of the multitude of desert plants that add color and texture to the journey.


Great Basin wildlife includes pronghorn antelope, mule deer, mountain lion, and Lagomorphs such as black-tailed jackrabbit and desert cottontail and the coyotes that prey on them. Small lizards such as the Great Basin fence lizard, longnose leopard lizard, and horned lizard are common. Desert striped whipsnakes, rattlesnakes, milk snakes, and gopher snakes are lurking. The sage grouse, golden eagle, mourning dove, western meadowlark, black-billed magpie, and the common raven are common bird species. At night, if you are very quiet, you will hear the nocturnals scampering about.


This desert is anything but stark.


The journey continues into Garfield County, Utah, when on the horizon, piercing the desert floor, are thousands of delicate spires, pinnacles, and mazes carved out of brilliant cliffs in a palette of shades that challenges the eye. Bryce Canyon National Park was carved over millions of years by the powers of wind and water. Established as a National Park in 1928, its color and architecture are paralyzing. And it seems as if there is a separation between the high desert and this other worldly geology, but when one leads to another and then back again it is clear that this is a wilderness, not a continuous form but a balanced ecosystem.


Now we travel 10 miles southwest into Kane County and come upon a festering sore on the desert. This is not a natural phenomenon like the rolling desert landscape or the rocky amphitheaters of Bryce Canyon. It is a coal mine. Owned and operated by Alton Coal Development, it is a strip mine peeling back the layers of the desert surface to expose the coal seam below. The coal company has applied for a permit to mine an additional 3,500 acres on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).


If you have not seen a strip mine, it is—next to the battlefield—one of the most destructive practices ever conceived. Land, water, air, and people are ripped up, shoved aside, turned to dust, blackened, suckered in, set up, and left forgotten so that it will take a century or more to put back what they have torn up. It often happens that much of the damage to people, land, flora, and fauna is permanent. Strip mining is the very definition of death.


So why sacrifice thousands of acres of land and incur the associated damage for coal? It is really a combination of greed, political corruption, ineptitude, and a hungry market. The greed is personified by the owners of Alton Coal Development, since only the money matters to these coal executives, regardless of the cost to people and the environment. And while the politics link Alton Coal Development directly to Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert—he received a $10,000 campaign contribution from Alton Coal and the permit for the first mine sailed through the regulatory process—the decision on the mine expansion permit lies squarely with the Bureau of Land Management, since they will decide if the lease for the additional 3,500 acres is approved or not. Aside from the fact that they know nothing about land management, think of the most bungling federal agency you know and multiply that by the highest number you can imagine. And the market is Los Angeles, where the power generated by coal will be distributed. This city’s endless and thoughtless energy consumption is driving demand for a massive strip mine on the doorstep of a national park.


The greed and political corruption surrounding coal is legend. The Appalachian coalfields, the Powder River Basin, the Denver Basin, Southern Illinois Coal Fields, and many more have been ravaged, while the coal companies and politicians abuse their power for personal gain.


The Bureau of Land Management “manages” about 264 million acres of land. The agency controls more land than any other entity in the United States yet remains largely unknown to the general public. Author and essayist Edward Abbey called the agency the “Bureau of Livestock and Mines.” Others call them the “Bureau of Land Mismanagement.” The Department of Interior’s inspector general, under the Bush Administration, determined that “The BLM has a culture of managerial irresponsibility, which includes widespread ethical failures and cronyism. Each of their decisions represents bureaucratic bungling and a bit of pork, a favor Congress handed out to some special interest at everyone else’s expense—and, often, with serious environmental consequences.” They are ignorant of scientific principles and exhibit no regard for people, land, and wildlife. So what impact will the BLM’s leasing decision have?


First, let’s talk people. The tract and coal haul transportation routes are located in the northwestern corner of Kane County, the western edge of Garfield County, and the eastern half of Iron County, including the communities of Alton, Hatch, and Panguitch. Panguitch is one example of a community struggling to stay alive. Tourism makes up 60% of the economy in the region and it is beginning to suffer badly. Panguitch is an idyllic setting, filled with visitors to Bryce Canyon and other parks and monuments. But today, one coal truck weighing over 200,000 lbs. barrels through downtown Panguitch every 7 minutes. The retailers are located on the same route as the coal trucks and coal dust fills the air and rains on the community constantly. The business owners sweep the sidewalks, windowsills, and store entrances, but in less than an hour, the heavy black soot returns. And to make matters even worse, the Center for Disease Control has now documented that coal dust from surface mining can cause black lung disease—a disorder that was thought to be limited to underground mining. The noise and vibration are intolerable, and soon the pavement will begin to crumble. Along nearly the entire coal haul transportation route is crucial wildlife habitat. Summer crucial habitat for mule deer (3,577 acres), winter and yearlong habitats for pronghorn and yearlong habitats for Rocky Mountain elk are present along the route. Greater sage-grouse occupy rabbitbrush and sagebrush/grassland habitats on approximately 1,620 acres (45%) of the tract. The tract and routes also include resident and neotropical migratory birds, raptors, amphibians, snakes, and all the flora of the high desert. The same threats facing the people of Panguitch also threaten the entire ecosystem.


When asked about the impact of the mine and its expansion on the ecosystem, Cal McCluskey, BLM’s Senior Wildlife Specialist, said, with a straight face, “Yes, this should be studied.” But it wasn’t and won’t be because the BLM is ruled by under-the-table and unknown rules, and clearly not science.


The impact of the expanded mining operation on Bryce Canyon are yet unknown. Nevertheless, it can’t be good. Over five times the amount of coal will be produced if the expanded mine is approved—compared with the current mine—and the dust already fills the air. I’ve seen it in the Appalachian coal fields where the mining, the trucks, and the dust have devastated communities and left an indelible and a ruinous mark on the ecosystem.


It is hard to believe that a few greedy executives and a government agency are conspiring to ensure widespread lung disease and the economic collapse of entire community, while simultaneously threatening all habitat and wildlife.


Wilderness is not a luxury and we have an obligation to express our abhorrence of all that would desecrate it. Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker who directed and produced The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, said “…the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone.” This is not only true of Bryce Canyon, but also of the people, their communities, their livelihood, their public lands, and the habitat in the high desert of southwestern Utah.

If you would like to help stave off the Bureau of Land Management, contact: Tim Wagner, Utah Sierra Club, 
Resilient Habitats Campaign, tim.wagner@sierraclub.org, 
(801) 467-9294.


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