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There has been an agreement between the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) and Emery County to deal with the lease and sell of school trust lands measuring around 2,500 acres by the Emery County. This beautiful piece of land is just located west of the Green River and there is a proposed plan of turning itself into a Green River Industrial Park in the near future.

The first right to buy an area of 1,600 acres of industrial park by Transition Power Development was given by Emery County Commissioner. The said Commission has also plans to sell 640 acres of land to Bluerock Resources, LLC, a Canadian firm for the purpose of building uranium mill. The 90% of the areas of the industrial park is now dedicated either for the nuclear reactors or uranuium plants. The Emery County and the Transition Power Development has entered into such a contract that the Emery County will not be allowed to sell the other parts of the land to any third party, even if then third party offers more money than the Bluerock Resources.

As the deal between the Emery County Commissioner and SITLA has been finalized along with Transition Power Development and Bluerock Resources; the role of the County Commissioner is almost over now. The Transition Power Development needs approval from the Emery County to sale and rezone the land. The Government Regulators at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will soon decide the fate of the nuclear project.

The Environment Appeals Board of the US Environment Protection Agency has ruled that they were unable to find any solid reason for their refusal of using the best available control technology for limiting the emission carbon dioxide from a power plant in Utah, which primarily uses coal as its main ingredients.

The Sierra Club before the Environmental Appeals Board requested that the air permit issued by EPA Region 8 be overturned as it has failed to control the carbon dioxide, which is the primary cause of global warming. Joanne Spalding, the attorney of the Sierra Club argued that the decision paved a meaningful way to fight against global warming and suggested to introduce a clean energy economy. The three members Board in this ruling sent the air permit back to EPA Region 8 for reconsideration of how the best technology should be used to limit the emission of carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Federal Clean Air Act and can be subject to regulation by the US E.P.A. This decision follows a ruling of US Supreme Court, 2007. EPA Region 8 argued unsuccessfully that it has the authority to monitor and report against the carbon dioxide emission but does not have the authority to actually control them. Desert Power is a 110 megawatt plant, which emits 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. This company serves more than 45,000 customers and sells additional power to municipalities, marketers and other electric systems in six states. The company was not available for any direct comments but their website stated that the Bonanza Power Plant is a top ranked environmentally clean coal fired plants.

Every now and then, the remains of a few limited dinosaur fossils are found in the Utah region but the current find by the team of Illinois scientists is anything but the same. They have found the remains of multiple dinosaur fossils buried along with coniferous trees in a well-preserved state, so much so that one can actually fell the bark of the tree fossil. Fossils in such a state of preservation are quite rare and offer the scientists a glimpse into Utah’s past.

The group of scientists representing the Burpee museum of natural history has uncovered the 148 million years old remains of about 6 or so dinosaur species, all in a single place. The mystery here is what could have led these different dinosaurs to die and get fossilized in the same place. Perhaps, they were all drinking water when a disaster of massive proportions took place, killing them all, in the process. That could well account for the fossils of different species of dinosaurs being found together.

Jurassic period is one that continues to engage the intelligence of the scientists worldwide and the current find could well shed a light on the many mysteries of that particular epoch. According to paleontologist Matt Bonnan, an associate professor of biological sciences at Western Illinois University, this find could well rival those of Utah’s famous Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry and Dinosaur National Monument. For the very first time in quite a long while, different species of dinosaurs have all been found together and this find is sure to propel Hanksville as a reservoir of fossils, with many yet to be discovered!

Even a sock toy has the power to stir up an entire state or so it seems, with accusations of racism being flung right and left. It all started out with Binkley toys manufacturing a sock toy and labeling it as Obama. Binkley toys was contracted to mass-produce the sock toy and has now found itself in mire that seems to be getting deeper by the minute. The toy in question is black and has been labeled as Obama, fine; I can understand why it may seem offensive to many.

But this is the age of advancement and knowledge; as such, it is time we all started to act according to the age, not our age, but the time itself. Gone are the days when we had to cry bloody murder over the smallest thing and end up making a mountain of a molehill. The premise for objection to this toy in particular is sound and Binkley toys has come out assuring all that it will no longer manufacture this toy and has rendered an apology. The matter should rest there but it seems that this issue is being dredged up every now and then to serve a persons self interest’s rather than the issue at hand. One can even say that this issue is being used as a sort of a political platform, to what ends, one can only guess.

This view may seem a bit cynical but given all that the current politicians are capable of, one should not be surprised to hear this issue dominating the airwaves for days to come ahead. All aside, Binkley toys may find itself facing a bigger problem soon as it has breached the contract with ‘The sock Obama’, the contractor for this sock. The Obama sock has already been labeled as “pure racism in its extreme” by Jeanetta Williams, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I do wonder what the current political establishment has to say about all this? Would action of any kind be taken against Biknley toys and its contractor? Let us hope so.

Mussels are considered a threat in Utah as well as in most parts of the United States as they pose a certain danger to marine wildlife on account of their voracious appetite for plankton. That aside, Mussels are pretty hard to get rid off, lets say that you come across a mussel, try removing it with your hand and you will know exactly why it is hard to remove them. In addition to being hard to remove, Mussels tend to build colonies very rapidly thus making it near impossible to remove them altogether from small-sized water bodies.

Taking into account the threat that they pose to the local marine life, the Utah state officials were unpleasantly surprised last week when they came across a boat contaminated with Zeba mussels. What made this incident shocking is the fact that despite random checks on all the local boats plying on the flaming gorge reservoir, this had happened. The biologists from the Division of Wildlife resources were happy to note that the mussels hiding in the drive train area of the boat were all dead. The mussels continue to pose a threat to the marine flora and fauna, in addition to causing damage to any local aqua project.

The Utah officials surmised correctly that the mussels were dead as the boat had sat out of the water for a long duration and had it not, the news would not be good. This was a near miss but one cannot count on being so lucky all the time. When it comes to mussels prevention is the best policy to adopt, so when it comes to Utah, say no to mussels!

With drug and narcotic smuggling on the rise, it should definitely not come as a surprise to any of us that a Utah man was recently convicted of trying to smuggle African ‘Khat’ to the United States of America. He was held guilty of conspiring to import hundreds of pounds of this African drug to the mainland and got sentenced to 18 months behind bars for his effort.

Of course, we all think that he is pretty dumb, but that aside, how on earth did he think that we was going to get away with it? He was not even taking the time to smuggle it into the country but had imported it in the guise of ’spices’. Being an import item, it would have been subjected to a myriad number of tests including a visual inspection by the customs officials themselves.

khat is an African plant, whose green leaves, when chewed tend to give one a high and are categorized as a drug. Most of the people in east Africa chew Khat in one form or the other. The Utah man must have thought that there would be a great demand for this amongst the African immigrants in Utah and so decided to import it. The Khat was all chopped up and flown to the United States and from there to Utah by way of a container truck. The customs officials in Utah decided to take a closer look at this huge consignment of Spices and were shocked to discover that it was actually a drug shipment marked to the Holladay residence. It must have been really insulting to the customs officials in Salt lake city to have their intelligence underestimated by a person who thought that he could legally import drugs into this country.