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HERRIMAN -- A battle may be brewing over a pristine canyon just outside of Herriman. Some neighbors and environmental activists are upset about a deal by Kennecott to buy county-owned open-space and possibly mine it.
"Why pollute more?" asked Bill Coon, who lives in nearby Hi-Country Estates. "Why risk the health of other people?"
Salt Lake County bought the land in Rose Canyon three years ago, specifically to preserve it as open-space. But Kennecott Utah Copper has a winning trump card: mineral rights to the same property. County officials knew there was a risk it might be dug up some day, but they went through with the purchase in 2007.
"We believed that Kennecott had done research in the area before and that they hadn't found anything that was promising," said Julie Peck-Dabling, open space program manager for Salt Lake County.
Kennecott recently surveyed the property with aerial magnetic imaging and concluded there might be minerals underground that would be worth going after.
"The next phase is drilling," said Kennecott spokeswoman Jana Kettering. "After that, depending on what we find through drilling, we'll determine where we go from there."
Once Kennecott got interested in exploring the land for minerals, there wasn't really much the county could have done to stop them.
"Since they have the subsurface rights, their rights really usurp the surface owner's rights," said Peck-Dabling.
"We do have the right to go after that," Kettering said. "But we did want to keep the county whole in the open space purchase. That's why we agreed to purchase the land."
Kennecott agreed buy 832 acres for $5,345,000, about a million dollars more than the county paid for the land three years ago. That profit may help the county achieve a larger goal, finishing up land acquisition to complete the Jordan River Parkway.
"We get a million dollars more to buy more open space," Peck-Dabling said. "This property (in Rose Canyon) will stay open. So we feel it's very beneficial for the residents."
But the land will stay open only if Kennecott decides against major mining or disposal activities on the land. Some residents a couple of miles away in Hi-Country Estates worry about Kennecott's long-term plan.
"The largest concern we have here is the health concerns from dust, from pollution, groundwater pollution, our aquifer being polluted," said Coon.
The neighbors also worry that Kennecott might use the Rose Canyon Ranch as a place to dump unwanted waste-rock. That same "overburden" material at the Bingham Canyon Mine already forms waste-piles hundreds of feet high that are visible from all over the Salt Lake Valley. Historic mining activity in that area has been blamed for contaminated groundwater underlying much of the valley's west side.
"Butterfield Creek is polluted," Coon said. "Bingham Creek is polluted. We don't want to see our intermittent creeks around here polluted. We don't want to see our drinking water polluted."
Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, has seized on Rose Canyon as a battleground in a larger war. He said Kennecott's proposed long-term expansion will widen a troubling legacy of health costs from dust, air pollution and runoff.
"I think it has the potential to further jeopardize the water supply of the area, further contaminate it," Moench said.
Kennecott acknowledges major environmental mistakes in the past, but Kettering said the company has spent a lot of money to clean them up.
"If you look at our current record," Kettering said, "we're doing things in very environmentally friendly ways."
Kettering defends Kennecott's proposed expansion as a big economic boost to the state. It brings jobs, tax revenue and financial benefits to a thousand Utah companies, she said.
But Moench wonders if the supposed benefits are illusory. He said a study in West Virginia showed that coal-mining is a net loss for that state, if all factors are fairly considered. He'd like to see a similar analysis of Kennecott.
"I think we need to have a real legitimate study," Moench said, "to figure out what kind of an economic impact do they have when you factor in all of the repercussions of their activity, environmental and public health in particular."
As for the Rose Canyon controversy, Coon said, "I think Kennecott should relinquish their mineral rights to the county and leave Rose Canyon Ranch pristine."
Moench echoed that thought. "We think if Kennecott wants to be considered by the community as a good neighbor," Moench said, "they should make that gesture that, yeah, that's land that the community ought to have back."
The Rose Canyon purchase still has to be approved by the Salt Lake County Council before it becomes final.
E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
