BLM Announces Coal Lease Sale for Greens Hollow Tract
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Salt Lake City, Utah—The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will conduct a Competitive Coal Lease Sale for a tract of Federal coal in Sanpete and Sevier Counties, Utah. The tract is located approximately 10.5 miles west of Emery, Utah, under lands managed by the Manti-La Sal and Fishlake National Forests. The Federal coal tract, known as the Greens Hollow Tract, is located in the Wasatch Plateau Known Recoverable Coal Resource Area.
The 6,175-acre tract contains approximately 55.7 million tons of recoverable coal adjacent to and northwest of the existing SUFCO Mine, which is operated by Canyon Fuels, LLC, a subsidiary of Bowie Resource Partners, LLC. The BLM intends to offer the tract to the highest qualified bidder at a competitive coal lease sale. The opening of the sealed bids will take place at the Salt Lake City Public Library, 210 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, Utah at 1:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on January 4, 2017. It will be conducted using sealed bids as outlined below.
Sealed bids must be sent by certified mail to the Collections Officer, BLM Utah State Office, 440 West 200 South, Suite 500, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101, return receipt requested, or be hand-delivered to the public room Contact Representatives, BLM Utah State Office on or before 10:00 a.m. Mountain Standard Time on the day of the sale. Any bid received after the time specified above will not be considered and will be returned. The outside of the sealed envelope containing the bid must clearly state that the envelope contains a bid for Coal Lease Sale UTU-84102 and is not to be opened before the date and hour of the sale.
Once a coal lease is issued, an annual rental payment of $3 per acre is required, along with a royalty payment of eight percent of the value of coal produced by underground mining methods, which will be used in the Greens Hollow Tract.
This sale is consistent with Secretarial Order 3338, issued January 15, 2016, which exempted from its “leasing pause” sales being held in connection with pending applications “for which the environmental analysis under NEPA has been completed and a Record of Decision or Decision Record has been issued by the BLM or the applicable Federal surface management agency” prior to the date of the Order. Here, the NEPA analysis was completed in February 2015 and the U.S. Forest Service issued its Record of Decision consenting to the sale of the tract on October 5, 2015. A Federal Register Notice of the BLM’s decision authorizing the lease sale was originally published on August 18, 2016.
Based on that notice, the sale was originally scheduled for September 22, 2016. Due to a Notice of Appeal and Petition for Stay filed with the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) that sale had to be postponed. On October 26, 2016, the IBLA denied the stay request due to its finding that the plaintiffs had failed to show a likelihood of immediate and irreparable harm. As a result of that decision, the BLM has rescheduled the sale for January 4, 2017.
For more information or to obtain further bidding instructions, please contact Jeff McKenzie at (801) 539-4038. Persons who use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339 to leave a message or question with the above individual. The FIRS is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Replies are provided during normal business hours.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.