Environmental groups attack approval for strip mine near Bryce Canyon

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah regulators set lax pollution standards for a strip mine near a national park, an expert witness testified Friday.

The Sierra Club and three other environmental groups are challenging a permit for the coal mine, saying the operation would pollute waterways and kick up dust 10 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park, which is known for its views, pristine air and sparkling night skies.

Bryce Canyon's superintendent also has objected.

Opponents contend Utah set a low threshold for sediment that would run off the strip mine into mountain lakes, streams and the wild and scenic Virgin River.

"There's a lot of water that runs onto the mine site," said Charles H. Norris, chief executive of the Denver consulting firm Geo-Hydro Inc. He said Utah's standards weren't tough enough to prevent muddying of waterways that already carry a high natural sediment load.

Norris testified before a citizens board for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, the agency that approved the state's first coal strip mine, about 200 miles south of Salt Lake City.

The hearings were to resume Saturday.

The director of Utah's mining agency defended its decision to approve the strip mine.

"There's a difference in technical opinion," said John Baza during a break in the hearing. He said opponents "want us to step farther" to set stricter standards for tolerating salts and dissolved solids in mining discharge water.

Regulators don't have to do that, and they met all of Utah's legal requirements when they gave approval in October to Alton Coal Development LLC to strip 440 acres of private lands near the isolated Kane County town of Alton, he said.

The company is seeking federal approval to expand the strip mine onto thousands of acres of surrounding public lands, where the shallow coal seam continues. It has not revealed a buyer for the coal, but Utah has several coal-fired power plants.

Residents of nearby Panguitch are upset that the operation would dispatch coal trucks as often as 300 times a day, six days a week, through their town.

Much of Friday's hearing was taken up by Walton D. Morris, who grilled state regulators on their standards for tolerating dissolved solids and salts in mining discharge water.