Atlas-Dirty Devil Coal Mine

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This page was last updated on March 17, 2025.

Overview

The Atlas Dirty Devil coal mine, first proposed in November 1977, was a failed attempt of developing coal resources specifically for shipment to Nevada Power's steam power plant at Moapa. The mine was to be a strip mine near Factory Butte, about 25 miles northwest of Hanksville and about 80 miles southwest of Green River, Utah.

The coal was to be mined and trucked 72 miles to a new siding on D&RGW, five miles west of Green River, where a small flood loader was built to load the coal into rail cars. Funding for the project, known as the Atlas-Dirty Devil mine, was obtained from a New York City bank, based on the geological studies completed by one consultant and confirmed by another. Permits were issued in early 1978 and development and construction began.

A coal washing plant was completed at the mine, which was 25 miles northwest of Hanksville, with the test runs of the washer beginning in April 1978. The first trainload of 70 110-ton capacity rail cars was loaded on November 18, 1878. A second and third train were planned to be loaded and shipped to Nevada within a week. By March 1979, the mine was producing 2,000 tons per day, and the coal washing plant near the mine was cleaning 1,400 tons per day. Trucks were hauling coal around the clock, moving 1,200 tons per day. Every seven days, a train of 70 cars was being shipped to Nevada.

But the mine was shut down in April 1979 "due to management problems" and all 50 employees laid off. The three officials of the mining contractor, C&C Coal, and their families returned to West Virginia.

In June 1979 the partnership between the Dirty Devil Mining Corporation, and its partner Atlas Resources began federal bankruptcy proceedings, owing $11 million to 20 different creditors (the largest was $8.5 million to the New York bank). At that time it was reported that the mine had been shut down because Nevada Power had found that the coal was not satisfactory for use in its Moapa steam power generating plant.

At about that same time, in mid 1979, the coal storage pile at the mine caught fire and continued to burn for another six months. The mine and coal washing plant were both located on state-owned land. Because the fire was on state land, and the mining company bankrupt, the state was liable to put the fire out. The coal mine had been operated under a state lease to an individual (a geologist), and was in-turn subleased to the Atlas Dirty Devil partnership.

In a later law suit filed in 1982, in which the New York bank sued the geologic consulting firms to recover the $8 million it had invested based on their reports, it was stated that the project failed because the coal from the Dirty Devil mine was not suitable for Nevada Power's needs. This is contrary to newspaper reports saying that Nevada Power had written to the partnership in March 1979, saying that they were very happy with the coal they had received, including one shipment that was extremely low in sulfur and ash. At least one train load was reported as being called "bonus coal" because it was totally free of any ash and sulfur.

In December 1979, the Emery County delinquent tax roll showed the Atlas Dirty Devil property as being 40 acres in the SW-1/4 of the SW-1/4 of Section 11, T21S, R15E, along 40 acres in SE-1/4 of the SW-1/4 of the same Section 11. This is the area surrounding the rail siding west of Green River. The mine itself was all within Section 2 of T27S, R9E.

In March 1980, the Wayne County assessor was on the site of the Atlas Dirty Devil coal mine, prior to participating the bankruptcy hearings in Salt Lake City the next day. He reported that the security system had been abandoned February 1st, and that "Plumbing, light fixtures, motors, windows, appliances and nearly everything moveable is missing."

In June 1980, because the mine site and rail car loader site had been reported and documented as being abandoned, the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining began proceedings to force the company to reclaim both sites, making use of the bond that had been filed when the mining permits were issued.

By May 1981, the mine northwest of Hanksville, and the rail car loading site west of Green River were owned by Carbonera Mining Company of Grand Junction, Colorado. Carbonera had purchased the sites as part of the Atlas Dirty Devil bankruptcy, and was trying to obtain funding to re-open the mine and loader. The bankruptcy court had allowed the sale under a 20-year court administered lease-purchase option agreeent, giving Carbonera 20 years to make the needed royalty payments and payments to creditors. The first payment of $400,000 had been made, and another for $250,000 was due in mid June. Then the annual payments were to be $300,000. It was later revealed that Carbonera was controlled by investors in Saudi Arabia, and that the privately held Nevada corporation controlled coal leases in Utah and Colorado.

The mine site was on state-owned land, and was under lease and sublease to Carbonera. In December 1984, with the mine site still not reclaimed, the state transferred the leasehold to a new company called Comstock Industries, which was reported as having a five-year contract to ship 20,000 tons of coal per month to an customer in Holland.

In July 1989, a local Price attorney proposed a new company to mine the former Atlas Dirty Devil coal mine. The new company, knwon as the Factory Butte Coal Company.

(Like the Carbonera proposal in 1985, this proposal from 1989 failed to develop the former Atlas Dirty Devil coal mine, due to the low quality of the coal, with its low BTU value, and the high cost of transportation.)

Map

Atlas Dirty Devil Coal Mine and Rail Loadout -- A Google map of the location of the Atlas Dirty Devil coal mine, and the loadout on the D&RGW railroad west of Green River, along with the 72 miles of truck route between the two.

The map shows that remnants of the mine and of the rail car loader still remain to this day.

More Information

The following comes from a civil case, Marine Midland Bank v. Keplinger & Associates, Inc., United States District Court, Southern District of New York. March 31, 1982.

In the summer of 1977, MMB (Marine Midland Bank, a New York banking corporation) was approached by investors seeking financial resources for the development of a Utah coal mine. Before entering into any contractual commitments, MMB obtained a geological report of the mining site prepared by Miller (J. W. Miller & Associates). The Miller Report allegedly assured MMB that development of the mine could yield a recovery of nearly 27 million tons of clean coal. To evaluate the reliability of the conclusions reached by Miller, MMB sought the services of Keplinger (Keplinger & Associates, Inc.), an expert coal consultant, who agreed to review all the geological data of the project and to report to MMB on potential coal recoveries.

In August, 1977, Keplinger represented to MMB in a written report that the procedures employed by Miller in the calculation of coal reserves had been performed in accordance with standard professional practice; that the reserves were adequate for large scale surface mining, and that the coal quality would meet consumer requirements. Thereupon, in November, 1977 and continuing into the following year, MMB disbursed funds to finance the project. During this same period of time, plaintiffs allege that Keplinger was to continue its reports to MMB on the status of the project.

By the fall of 1978, it became apparent that the site's recoverable coal would not meet the defendants' predictions upon which MMB had purportedly relied. This conclusion was supposedly later confirmed in reports made by Keplinger. The Atlas-Dirty Devil Mining partnership has since filed a petition under Chapter XI of the Bankruptcy Act. MMB commenced this action against both defendants to recover approximately $9 million in unpaid loans incurred from financing of this now bankrupt project.

The following comes from USGS Professional Paper 1625-B, Coal Resources of the Henry Mountains Coal Field, Utah; 1999.

Small-scale mining of Ferron coal took place on a longer term basis at the far northern end of the field near Factory Butte. Mining in this area began in 1908 and continued to produce coal for local use through the 1950's. Renewed mining for electric power generation was attempted in the late 1970's by the Atlas-Dirty Devil Mining Company, who opened a surface mine in June 1978, trucked the coal to Green River, Utah, and sent test shipments by rail to the power plant at Moapa, Nev. Problems with coal quality prevented this operation from achieving full production.

John Shine wrote on June 23, 2022.

The local Historical Society here in Grand Junction came into the possession of a slide collection that was taken by the late Warren Kiefer. His notes are somewhat vague so I am posting some of the pictures here asking for help. In this picture, three Rio Grande SD45's and a SD40T-2 were taken at the Atlas coal loadout. I know that this facility was somewhere west of Green River but not sure where and I am having a tough time trying to find out any information about this mine. The slide mount is stamped June, 1979 but obviously it was taken earlier in the year with the snow on the ground.

(View the photo of D&RGW loading a train at the Atlas Loadout; used with permission)

Mark Hemphill wrote on June 27, 2022.

Atlas was just east of Sphinx at MP 559.0, and consisted of a 9,850-foot side track off the south side of the main track, and a flood loader working off a live stockpile. The coal was trucked from the Atlas-Dirty Devil Mine near Factory Butte, 80 miles to the southwest, which was a strip mine. The mine loaded a single train only in 1979, then closed. The coal quality was too poor and the mining cost too high, due to highly variable partings between the seams and local faulting and rolls, to pay for the mining and transportation cost. The single trainload was sold to Nevada Power. Mine cost FOB loadout was $14.83/ton, way out of line with its value.

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