tanya
03-04-2007, 11:05 AM
So, Congress, after years of foot-dragging, finally designates U.S. Highway 89 as a Heritage Highway, as a Mormon Heritage Highway, and Brigham Young's descendants decide to celebrate the honor by opening a strip mine just off the highway next to Bryce Canyon.
But, this highway, which even Congress now recognizes is a scenic and historic treasure worthy of millions of dollars in tourist development money, should, if the Bureau of Land Management and Alton Coal have their way, more properly be called The Slurry, The Coal Conveyer, or CoalSolutions Road. From Cedar City in the south to Panguitch in the north, coal trucks thick as ants will move along this road at 10 minute intervals 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This is lucky coal. On its way to Cedar City, coal from the Alton strip mine will have great views of the meandering Sevier River, of the pioneer pastures of Long Valley, of the aspens groves and lava beds of the Dixie National Forest, of Navajo Lake and Duck Creek, of Cedar Breaks National Monument, and of the spectacular gorge that links Cedar Breaks to Utah's Festival City.
While in Cedar City, this coal may have a chance to take in a Shakespeare play or enjoy a lunch break on a lawn in one of Cedar City's many hitherto quiet, tree-lined avenues.
On its way north, the Alton strip mine coal will have a bird's eye view of the Paunsaugunt and Sevier Plateaus (home of Red Canyon, Casto Canyon, Losee Canyon, and a thousand unnamed places that elsewhere would be national parks), of plucky Panguitch, and of the seldom (at least seldom until now) traveled Highway 20.
Yes, if the price of coal were determined by the amount of beautiful scenery it saw en route to its fiery end in the belly of a mercury-belching power plant, this is what you'd call million-dollar coal. It would also be million-dollar coal if you priced it according to the amount of scenery - 1,600 acres - it will destroy, 1,600 acres that will become a million-dollar wasteland, stripped of every juniper, pinion pine, manzanita bush, deer, mountain lion and bobcat.
And it's certainly million-dollar coal if you price it according to the real cost of burning it, the real cost of introducing more tons of mercury and soot into our air and water, the real cost of hazy Salt Lake and San Bernadino skies, the real cost of global warming, of habitat destruction, of lives that will be sacrificed to asthma, pneumonia and heart disease, and of lives that will be laid down on the highways when tired and sleepy residents of Panguitch, New York City and Berlin run head-on into coal trucks.
Yep, this is the best coal that money and life can buy, and it's coming to a Mormon Legacy Highway near you.
The money behind the Alton strip mine is happy to have such million-dollar coal, although in truth they're more interested in the million dollars than the coal or what they'll destroy to get at it. The Bureau of Logging and Mining, too, is happy. What more effective use of public land can one imagine than subsidizing strip mines? Helping those wealthy investors also provides gainful employment for thousands of federal bureaucrats.
For myself, though, and I imagine that I speak for most of the millions of tourists who come to see Utah's unspoiled land and, yes, sometimes, highways, the million-dollar skies and views are more the ticket. As residents of Emery County can tell you, having thousands of coal trucks rattling along the road is a real draw only for deep-pocketed visitors from Appalachia.
---
* ED FIRMAGE JR. is a landscape photographer who has logged thousands of miles along Utah's U.S. Highway 89.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_5350941
But, this highway, which even Congress now recognizes is a scenic and historic treasure worthy of millions of dollars in tourist development money, should, if the Bureau of Land Management and Alton Coal have their way, more properly be called The Slurry, The Coal Conveyer, or CoalSolutions Road. From Cedar City in the south to Panguitch in the north, coal trucks thick as ants will move along this road at 10 minute intervals 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This is lucky coal. On its way to Cedar City, coal from the Alton strip mine will have great views of the meandering Sevier River, of the pioneer pastures of Long Valley, of the aspens groves and lava beds of the Dixie National Forest, of Navajo Lake and Duck Creek, of Cedar Breaks National Monument, and of the spectacular gorge that links Cedar Breaks to Utah's Festival City.
While in Cedar City, this coal may have a chance to take in a Shakespeare play or enjoy a lunch break on a lawn in one of Cedar City's many hitherto quiet, tree-lined avenues.
On its way north, the Alton strip mine coal will have a bird's eye view of the Paunsaugunt and Sevier Plateaus (home of Red Canyon, Casto Canyon, Losee Canyon, and a thousand unnamed places that elsewhere would be national parks), of plucky Panguitch, and of the seldom (at least seldom until now) traveled Highway 20.
Yes, if the price of coal were determined by the amount of beautiful scenery it saw en route to its fiery end in the belly of a mercury-belching power plant, this is what you'd call million-dollar coal. It would also be million-dollar coal if you priced it according to the amount of scenery - 1,600 acres - it will destroy, 1,600 acres that will become a million-dollar wasteland, stripped of every juniper, pinion pine, manzanita bush, deer, mountain lion and bobcat.
And it's certainly million-dollar coal if you price it according to the real cost of burning it, the real cost of introducing more tons of mercury and soot into our air and water, the real cost of hazy Salt Lake and San Bernadino skies, the real cost of global warming, of habitat destruction, of lives that will be sacrificed to asthma, pneumonia and heart disease, and of lives that will be laid down on the highways when tired and sleepy residents of Panguitch, New York City and Berlin run head-on into coal trucks.
Yep, this is the best coal that money and life can buy, and it's coming to a Mormon Legacy Highway near you.
The money behind the Alton strip mine is happy to have such million-dollar coal, although in truth they're more interested in the million dollars than the coal or what they'll destroy to get at it. The Bureau of Logging and Mining, too, is happy. What more effective use of public land can one imagine than subsidizing strip mines? Helping those wealthy investors also provides gainful employment for thousands of federal bureaucrats.
For myself, though, and I imagine that I speak for most of the millions of tourists who come to see Utah's unspoiled land and, yes, sometimes, highways, the million-dollar skies and views are more the ticket. As residents of Emery County can tell you, having thousands of coal trucks rattling along the road is a real draw only for deep-pocketed visitors from Appalachia.
---
* ED FIRMAGE JR. is a landscape photographer who has logged thousands of miles along Utah's U.S. Highway 89.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_5350941