Emery County Coal Resources Inc. will be working on new approaches to put out the Lila Canyon Mine underground fire near Price, Utah, to help stave off prospective energy outages that the first might cause.
Among the solutions proposed to fight the fire are drill pads, boreholes, road improvements and installing an above-ground pipeline to deliver water as needed, according to an Oct. 21 U.S. Bureau of Land Management news release.
“The actions approved in this environmental assessment are focused on extinguishing the fire, and by doing so, prevent damage to equipment and existing mine infrastructure,” Greg Sheehan, BLM Utah state director, said in the release.
The BLM assessed the fire situation and said if it is not addressed properly, 37% of Utah’s residents could be left without power, according to the release. Emery County Coal Resources will be implementing the approved measures along about 7.3 surface acres.
The Lila Canyon Mine fire started in late September and mine owners began drilling into the mine to allow them to test the air and determine whether injection of nitrogen is a course of action to extinguish the fire in the underground mine, a Fox 13 report said.
The mine annually produces 3.47 million tons of coal, which is more than a quarter of the state's total. It employs 235 local residents and almost half of the coal the mine produces eventually arrives at the the Hunter and Huntington power plants, which generated 15,513 gigawatt hours of power in 2021 for Utah and elsewhere in the west, the BLM release said.
