Conservation groups seek to stop Bryce Canyon-area strip mine
"A petition filed with the Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday seeks emergency relief to suspend surface coal mining operations at the Coal Hollow Mine, three miles south of the town of Alton in Kane County.
'The company is moving aggressively to remove soil, impair streams and if the court doesn't act now, it is our fear that the company is going to do all the damage it plans to do in the first year of mining, by the end of this month,' Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance attorney Stephen Bloch said on Wednesday.
SUWA, along with the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the National Parks Conservation Association believes that Alton Coal Development falsely acquired permits to start preparing the land to mine the coal, yet nearly half of the acreage has 'already been stripped of soil and vegetation, graded and leveled, or otherwise disturbed,' according to court documents." Read more – Deseret News
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