United States Steel, Wellington Coal Wash Plant

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This page was last updated on June 27, 2025.

Overview

United States Steel Corporation completed its Wellington coal preparation plant in March 1958. The plant was located along the D&RGW mainline one and a half miles south of Wellington. The plant blended the coal from U. S. Steel's Sunnyside, Utah, and Somerset, Colorado mines to produce a better quality of coal for coking at the Geneva steel plant, by washing the coal to reduce its ash and sulphur content. The plant was built on a 1,500 acre site and processed all the coal mined in Utah and Colorado by the coal properties of Columbia-Geneva Steel Division, United States Steel Corporation.

Timeline

November 10, 1957
The grading for the yard at the washing plant was done by Morrison Knudsen. Allen & Garcia Company of Chicago built the washing plant. The plant was built on a 1,500 acre site and processed all the coal mined in the properties in Utah and Colorado of Columbia-Geneva Steel Division, United States Steel Corporation. (Salt Lake Tribune, November 10, 1957)

(The site selected was on farm land 1.5 miles southeast of the town of Wellington.)

March 24, 1958
United States Steel Corporation completed a coal preparation plant one and a half miles south of Wellington. The plant was built by Allen & Garcia and opened on March 24, 1958. The plant blended the coal from U. S. Steel's Sunnyside, Utah, and Somerset, Colorado mines to produce a better quality of coal for coking at the Geneva steel plant, by washing the coal to reduce its ash and sulphur content. (Sun Advocate & Helper Journal, January 2, 1975, p. 8)

July 1982
U. S. Steel sent one of its Alco model S-6 locomotives from its shut down Oliver mines in Minnesota, to the Wellington coal wash plant. It was seen en route on D&RGW at Minturn on July 20, 1982. (Glen Anderson, email dated November 5, 2011)

1983-1984
U. S. Steel shut down its coal mining activities in Utah in 1983-1984, including the Wellington coal wash plant. In a reflection of the environmental concerns, and its planned exit from Utah by U. S. Steel, the State of Utah issued a reclamation permit on January 17, 1984.

December 30, 1985
The Wellington wash plant was in continuous operation from 1958 until 1985, when U. S. Steel sold the site, buildings, rail yard and locomotives to Kaiser Coal, with a closing date of December 30, 1985. After 1985, the facility was operated by Kaiser Coal.

February 1986
U. S. Steel sold the Wellington coal preparation plant to Kaiser Coal Corporation, along with its coal property at Somerset, Colorado. The U. S. Steel coal mine at Somerset had been idle since December 22, 1985, after having produced 897,000 tons during 1985. Kaiser announced that it would keep the Somerset mine closed, but keep the Wellington plant in operation, and that it would continue to supply metallurgical coal to the Geneva steel plant. (Coal Age magazine, February 1986, page 13)

(U. S. Steel closed the Geneva steel plant on August 1, 1986)

Wellington Loadout

(Large portions of the following were extracted from documents on file at the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, Permit C0070012)

United States Steel Corporation was issued a permit on December 10, 1984 to operate the Wellington site as a coal loadout, and subsequently put into temporary cessation of operations. On February 25, 1986, the permit was transferred to Kaiser Coal Corporation who never activated the plant. Kaiser Coal Corporation went into bankruptcy in February of 1987. Genwal Coal Company purchased the property through the bankruptcy court in August 1989 and the permit was transferred to Genwal on October 10, 1989.

August 2, 1989
Kaiser Coal sold the Wellington plant site in 1989 to Genwal Coal Company, a subsidiary of Nevada Electric Investment Company (NEICO). The site was operated by Genwal Coal company along with its mine in Crandall Canyon. Genwal Coal Company was a subsidiary of NEICO, which NEICO had purchased in 1989 as a joint venture with Intermountain Power Agency to operate the Crandall Canyon mine and furnish coal to IPA's power plant near Delta. The bankruptcy court had approved the sale by Kaiser to genwal on April 14, 1989.

Under Genwal ownership, the former U. S. Steel railroad load-out facility at Wellington consisted of a much simplified flow of of coal from trucks to rail cars. Coal was crushed at the mine site, transported by truck to the Wellington facility, temporarily stored on the ground, screened, and then loaded into waiting rail cars. The actual loading operation was part of a new system installed by Genwal Coal Company beginning in September 1989 and made operational during November 1989. The new loading system used only one conveyor belt system of the old Kaiser/U.S. Steel preparation plant. Under Genwal ownership, the Wellington Loadout Facility was used to only store and load coal.

Both Genwal Coal company, and Castle Valley Resources were subsidiaries of NEICO, with Genwal performing the mining operations at the Crandall Canyon mine, and Castle Valley Resources providing the coal storage and rail car loading operations at Wellington. Castle Valley Resources filed as a corporation in Utah on December 29, 1989. It was last renewed April 17, 1996.

NEICO was a direct subsidiary of Sierra Pacific Resources of Reno, Nevada, with another Sierra Pacific subsidiary, Nevada Power, providing retail electric service to approximately 566,700 customers in Clark County, Nevada. Another Sierra Pacific subsidiary, Sierra Pacific Power, provides retail electric service to approximately 302,000 retail customers in northern Nevada and northeastern California, as well as natural gas to approximately 110,000 customers in northwestern Nevada. Sierra Pacific Power also provides wholesale electric power from its North Valmy Generating Station near Battle Mountain.

March 23, 1995
NEICO sold its 50 percent interest in the Genwal mine in Crandall Canyon to Andalex Resources. The other 50 percent interest in the Genwal mine was held by Intermountain Power Agency. The sale had first been announced on December 12, 1994, and the sale was approved after the required regulatory review and 30-day public notice. The Intermountain Power Agency retained its 50 percent interest in the Genwal mine.

(Read more about Andalex Resources)

Coal Fines

(Large portions of the following were extracted from documents on file at the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, Permit C0070012)

(Over the life of the plant from 1958 to 1985, it was estimated that it received from 1.5 to 1.8 million tons of raw coal, shipped 1.2 to 1.5 million tons of clean coal by rail, and disposed of approxirnately 300,000 tons of refuse annually, or about 8 million tons of coal waste fines. Coal processing waste or "refuse" was disposed of in two locations. Coarse refuse was disposed of in the on-site refuse pile, while fine refuse, less than 1/4-inch, was slurried through the pipeline across the D&RGW tracks and the Price River to the slurry impoundments located east of the river.)

On January 11, 1995, as part of the sale of NEICO's 50 percent interest in the Genwal mine in Crandall Canyon to Andalex Resources, NEICO became sole owner of the entire Wellington Preparation Plant property, including the rail yard and the surrounding land on the west side of the D&RGW tracks and the Price River, and the coal waste and refuse disposal ponds on the east side.

The primary disposal area for coal waste ("refuse") from the Wellington coal wash plant was located east of the D&RGW railroad tracks and the Price River, and was connected to the cleaning plant by the refuse pipeline and a clear water pipeline. The refuse material was pumped from the cleaning plant to the refuse disposal area. The coarse refuse was placed in the refuse waste pile on-site on the west, railroad, side, and the fine, high ash coal flowed with the carrying water to the upper refuse pond. The fine material began to drop out in the upper refuse pond. The partially clarified water passed to the lower refuse pond where the balance of the fine coal dropped and clear water passed to the clear water holding pond for the return to the coal cleaning plant on the west side of the Price River.

The Wellington Preparation Plant site was reactivated in early December 1989 and was used by Genwal as a coal loading facility. The permit was transferred to Castle Valley Resources, Inc. on December 5, 1991 and then transferred again on April 18, 1994 to Nevada Electric Investment Company (NEICO.)

In January 1996, NEICO leased a portion of the Wellington site with over 2 million tons of coal fines contained in the east side of the Price River to another company, Covol Technologies, a company headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Covol constructed a modular coal fines wash plant in that portion of the permit area. A truck load-out, slurry tank, tailings impoundment, retention berm, power lines, above ground water lines and tailings pipelines were constructed in order to recycle the coal refuse in the settlement basins. Covol Technologies, in turn processed the coal fines as extruded briquettes in its facility in Price, which began initial operation in mid October 1996.

Covol Technologies (later called Headwaters) was a company headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Covol removed fines from the slurry pond to process into coal briquettes for a few years on the east side of the facility. This activity was done under NEICO's permit. The Covol plant in Price was expanded and formal production began in June 1998. In late 1998, Covol (a publicly traded company) reporting losses that were worse than the 1997 year previous.

By December 1998, Covol had licensed its technology to 24 synthetic fuel companies nationwide, with all of them processing coal waste fines as marketable fuel for utilities. In September 2000, Covol Technologies changed its name to Headwaters, Inc.

(In addition to manufacturing briquettes from Wellington coal waste fines, Covol also developed a process to make briquettes from steel mill waste at Geneva Steel, which in-turn would allow Geneva to reintroduce the briquettes into the iron and steel-making process to recover the small amounts of iron contained in the waste.)

In November 1996, a company called EarthCo, Inc., leased from NEICO the property on the west side of the railroad tracks and the Price River. Later in 1997, as part of its lease agreement, EarthCo demolished the former U. S. Steel buildings west of the Price River as part of its reclamation activities at the site with plans to change the site to an industrial area. The largest and main building was demolished in December 1997. The foundations of of the main building, which included the "dump bins," remained in place until removed by Price River Terminal in 2013.

Most of the buildings and facilities on the west side were removed by EarthCo in 1997. In October 2004, more interim reclamation work was done on the east side of the permit area, including removing the pipeline bridge across the Price River.

EarthCo became the focus of a Time magazine investigation of abuses of a synthetic fuels "synfuels" tax benefit that rewarded new technologies meant to change coal to usable fuels, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and methane gas. The Wellington coal wash site was one of at least ten sites nationwide that served as sources for feed stock, known as coal fines, to produce these synfuels. (Time magazine, October 13, 2003, "The Great Energy Scam")

A dispute over property title developed in November 1999 after EarthCo attempted to sell the Wellington site to Covol. The suit was settled in September 2000, with Headwaters leasing the property directly from NEICO. At the same time, Covol Technologies changed it name to Headwaters, Inc., as part of its much larger worldwide interests in "recycling yesterday's waste into tomorrow's resources," i.e. "clean coal."

(Research suggests that the continued financial losses in 1997-1999 resulted in Covol suspending operations at the Wellington site, and closing the extruding plant in Price. From then onward, company revenue came solely from royalties from licensing its technology.)

Covol's coal fines wash plant on the east side of the river was idle for much of 1999, and ended in 2002. During the property dispute, another company, TechMat LLC, signed a sublease to resume the Covol's activities. Following cessation of the TechMat operations, the former Covol coal fines wash plant east of the river was dismantled and salvaged in 2006 as part of NEICO's assuming the reclamation bond in 2004.

NEICO retained ownership of the entire Wellington site, but continued to lease the 30 acres on the east side of the river where the coal fines were located to Covol/Headwaters. At no time did Covol or Headwaters own or lease either the rail yard or the two locomotives that remained on-site. The lease, and option to purchase, held by Headwaters, ran out and in March 1999 a reclamation bond for over $4 million was taken over by NEICO for use in any future reclamation of the site.

The March 1999 reclamation bond for the entire site was in the name of WCP [Wellington Coal Prep] Development, a subsidiary of Nevada Investment Electric Company (NIECO). In December 1999, the bond was taken over by NEICO directly. The reclamation permit was renewed in September 2004.

As of November 2006, NEICO still owned the property. Their March 2005 SEC Form 10-K stated, "NEICO, a wholly owned subsidiary of NPC (Nevada Power Company/Sierra Pacific Power Company), owns property in Wellington, Utah, which was the site of a coal washing and load out facility. The site has a reclamation estimate supported by a bond of $4.8 million with the Utah Division of Oil and Gas Mining. Currently, management is continuing to evaluate various options including reclamation and sale. At this time management does not expect the cost of reclamation to be in excess of the $4.8 million bond." (SEC Form 10-K, dated March 16, 2005, Sierra Pacific Resources)

In 2013, NEICO leased the coal waste and refuse basins and ponds east of the river to a new company, Bowie Refined Coal (BRC) Wellington. The Bowie name came from an agreement that Bowie Resource Partners, the largest operator of coal mines in Utah, with Bowie Resource Partners agreeing only to buy the cleaned coal as a low-cost fuel. The agreement was based on the new company's plans to process substandard coal, also known as coal waste or coal fines, by blasting it with air to separate out sulfur, dirt and other impurities and sell it as a "clean coal" fuel.

But BRC’s Wellington Dry Coal Cleaning Plant proved a failure, the purchase agreement with Bowie Resource Partners ran out, and the two companies parted ways. There was no financial crossover between the two companies, with Bowie Resource Partners agreeing only to buy the cleaned coal as a low-cost fuel. The executive leadership of Bowie Resource Partners was changed in a company shakeup in 2017, and a new executive team took over, with a focus to continue operating their active coal mines. Although still the largest coal mining company in Utah, Bowie Resource Partners changed its name to Wolverine Fuels in October 2018 to further separate itself from any legal entanglements stemming from the Bowie name being associated with the coal waste "coal fines" mess at Wellington.

(The parent company of Bowie Resource Partners, and the later Wolverine Fuels, is headquartered in The Netherlands, and is very sensitive to any negative name affiliation.)

BRC Wellington abandoned the 30-acre site, which was included in the 2013 sale of the entire Wellington site to Price River Terminal.

As of June 2025, under Price River Terminal's ownership, the coal refuse area of the Wellington Preparation Plant permit area on the east side of the Union Pacific tracks and the Price River, containing the settling basins and ponds remains as an active "mining" site and the marketable coal fines are slowly being either sold and hauled away for construction purposes, or sold and trucked to the Sunnyside Co-generation Plant for use as fuel. As the marketable coal fines are removed, the areas are being reclaimed by making them environmentally safe. In addition, portions of the coal refuse from the east area were trucked to the west (railroad) area for use as sub-base as the railroad area was expanded over the years.

Crude By Rail

Beginning in 2013, the site of the Wellington coal washing plant was used as a transloading site to load crude oil from the Uinta Basin from trucks to rail cars.

In November 2013, after negotiations began in June 2013, the entire site including the railroad yard, the coal piles west of the tracks and the river, and the coal refuse basins and settling ponds east of the tracks and river, a total of approximately 1,535 acres, were purchased by Price River Terminal LLC. Price River Terminal assumed all environmental and reclamation responsibilities.

The Wellington Preparation Plant was purchased by Price River Terminal, LLC and the permit was transferred to them on November 12, 2013.

As of June 2025, under Price River Terminal's ownership, the railroad side of the Wellington Preparation Plant permit area on the west side of the Union Pacific tracks and the Price River, is fully developed as an oil storage and transloading facility.

Locomotives

(Roster listing of the locomotives used at the Wellington Coal Wash plant)

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