Report: Utah Board Misused Public Money on Fossil Fuel Projects, Failed to Fund Rural Community Needs

The Community impact board provides a smoke screen for sweetheart projects to receive public money with little or no input from the public.

The Utah Clean Infrastructure Coalition released a report today showing Utah’s Permanent Community Impact Fund Board has funneled more than $109 million in public money to projects that promote or expand fossil fuel extraction, violating the federal Mineral Leasing Act.

Utah Oil Slick funding polluters instead of Rural Communities

The report also documents that needed infrastructure projects in rural communities are not funded while Utah leaders use federal lease revenues and royalties to help the fossil fuel industry, by funding polluters, including a proposed oil railway and oil refinery.

The Community impact board is funding several polluting projects with royalties that were intended for rural communities.

Oil, gas and coal companies pay the federal government for the right to develop federally owned minerals on public lands and pay royalties for any minerals they extract. Congress intended this money to be used to help rural communities experiencing rapid growth and infrastructure challenges because of fossil fuel extraction.

Utah is responsible for allocating the money to affected communities. But today’s report found a large portion managed by the governor-appointed Permanent Community Impact Fund Board has been used to enable fossil fuel extraction. Meanwhile, millions of dollars of community projects identified by rural communities have gone unfunded, including water and sewer services, recreation centers, road improvements and public safety equipment.

Surface Transportation board rendering of the Uinta Basin Oil train.

Today’s report amplifies the findings of a 2020 report from Utah’s Office of the Legislative Auditor General, which raised serious concerns about the Community Impact Board, including that the board improperly funded economic development projects. The board continues to misuse public funds despite the audit’s findings and recommendations.

news articles:

Deseret News story

Fox 13 story

KUER News story

Utah Tar Sands Resistance is proud to be a part of the Utah Clean Infrastructure Coalition. 

Petroteq Energy receives a stop work order again!

Petroteq Energy has been running an illegal operation over at TMM Asphalt Ridge Mine near the green river south of Vernal. Formerly known as MCW this project has received several stop orders and citations from state agencies and inspectors. 

Petroteq is a scam

Inspection report May 2020: “Conclusions and Recommendations: Operation has been ordered to vacate by the property owner. The lease is no longer valid. The operator has been cited for improper storage of deleterious materials and unpaid permit fees under MN-2020-60-01. The abatement requires immediately retaining a licensed disposal contractor to inventory and dispose of all petroleum and hazardous materials.”

Inspection report May 14, 2021: “Valkor and Greenfield established a joint venture back in March 2020. Plant construction was completed in December. The operator ran out of ore to process and set up an agreement with Tar Sands Holdings II to purchase more ore to bring to the property. Valkor asked the property owner for an extension to the terms of the lease allowing for an extension to produce more oil by end of year. According to the operator it is too expensive and currently not economical to mine the ore from the pit. The plan is to test the plant and once it is determined to be operational then mined material from the pit will be used. There are no immediate plans to the mine the pit material. The oil sand from the off-site source was estimated to be approximately 500 tons. Operator has identified a buyer for the sand material. The company planned to conduct further exploration to evaluate the resource which was scheduled to resume in June.”

Petroteq receives stop work order again.

Processing material from a mine not on site requires a different permit. Petroteq does not have a permit to do what they describe here to April Abate, the inspector. Who makes a stop work order:

Cessation order May 14, 2021: “Facility is processing material from an off-site source and staging waste products from off-site sources not in accordance with the most recently approved Notice of Intent dated October 27, 2017. “

Meanwhile Greenfield is formed from TOMCO (out of London) investors who already got ripped off on the Red Leaf project on Seep Ridge Road, and Valkor. Greenfield is duping folks into buying shares in this charade of a mine and processing facility. 

May 25 Findings of fact order resulting from stop work conference 

On May 21, 2021 a stop work conference was held at the request of Greenfield energy and Petroteq was ordered to comply or cease by July 1 2021.

Book Cliffs Highway Cancelled

The Book Cliffs Highway, a massive proposed public subsidy to the fossil fuel industry, extending seep ridge road through Grand County to I-70 was just cancelled.

The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC) has been pursuing this project against public opposition for several years. In 2015 the Grand County Council pulled out of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC) in order to avoid being outvoted over support for this project. This unnecessary project through a steep and wild canyon would have been expensive and destructive. 

Estimated Project Cost:*
Construction for East Canyon Route:  $157 Million
   
Maintenance Estimate (20 years): $27 Million
   
Yearly Maintenance: $1.35 million

* These estimates are from the Book Cliffs Transportation Corridor Study, others have ranged as high as $418 million in construction costs with annual maintenance and operating costs as high as $3.89 million.

Seep Ridge road built for oil and gas is mostly empty. The UTSR bike ride follows Seep Ridge from “the Horn” to the Willow Creek overlook.

STB rendering of the proposed Uinta Basin Oil train.

Uinta Basin Railway Comment Period has been extended until Feb 12 2021, and YOU can still add your comment to the Draft EIS. Utah Tar Sands Resistance has been working with the Center for Biological Diversity and others to stop this expensive subsidy. Follow the links below to add your comment. Please share.

Here are some ideas for commenting.

The proposed Uinta Basin Railway would be a train wreck for our air, wildlands, climate and communities. This multi-billion-dollar boondoggle would ruin more than 10,000 acres of habitat for migratory wildlife and endangered species while worsening the climate crisis. 

But you can help stop it.

Uinta basin oil train will require several expensive tunnels and numerous stream crossings.

The Surface Transportation Board has released this project’s draft environmental impact statement for review by the public. But the board is only accepting comments until Feb. 12, 2021 so you need to take action now.

The STB states:

“Based on the analysis in the Draft EIS, OEA concludes that construction and operation of any of the alternatives would result in significant environmental impacts. Major impacts would include temporary and permanent impacts on surface waters and wetlands; impacts on biological resources, including federally listed threatened and endangered species and other protected species; permanent changes to land uses on public and private lands; and noise impacts on residences near the proposed rail line during rail operations” Oil and gas extraction are already poisoning the Uinta Basin, harming people and wildlife. The proposed railway would make things much worse — in fact, it could quadruple crude-oil extraction while tearing up habitat for species like the greater sage grouse and endangered Barnaby ridge-cress. 

Tell the Surface Transportation Board to stop the Uinta Basin Railway in its tracks.

Use the links above to comment through the CBD “fast action” page or comment directly here:

http://www.uintabasinrailwayeis.com/PublicInvolvement.aspx

Public comment to SITLA board of trustees Aug 13 2020.

Raphael Cordray Utah Tar Sands Resistance

Good Morning. I want to tell the board how they are being used to defraud investors and local communities as well as defrauding the Trust through questionable business practices. And I ask you to stop this. SITLA and the board of trustees have a duty to make sure that they and the trust are not being used to generate transactions for pump and dump penny stock scams. SITLA has spent trust money to create an OBA for Viva Ventures Oil Sands LLC. On March 20, 2019, the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration Board of Trustees approved this OBA for Viva Ventures Inc. Viva ventures subsequently made a the following paid press release:

“Utah Trust Lands Board Approval Substantially Increases Vivakor Oil Sand Resources LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / March 25, 2019 / Vivakor, Inc. (OTC PINK: VIVK ), a technology and asset acquisition company with a focus in the area of natural resources, received approval from the Board of Trustees for the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) for a bituminous/Asphaltic sands mineral lease in a 1440 acre area of Eastern Utah known to have enormous heavy crude, bituminous sand deposits. ″We are pleased the SITLA Board unanimously approved this mineral lease, allowing us to work with the State organization in verifying the asset reserve and ultimately deploying our technology on this vast 1440 acre area. We have a great working relationship with them, successfully operating on their properties previously, demonstrating our commitment to the area and the viability of our technology. Our Remediation Processing Centers (RPCs) are the key to unlocking and finally monetizing the literal billions of barrels of heavy crude trapped within sands in Eastern Utah,″ stated Vivakor Chief Executive Officer Matt Nicosia.”

#END OF PRESS RELEASE#

On March 20, 2019 Trent Staggs appeared before the SITLA board and agreed to terms for a special lease with SITLA, he made inaccurate claims and promises to the SITLA board who approved the contract. I understand that Vivakor never signed the contract with SITLA and VIVAKOR is not leasing anything from SITLA.

However the VIVAKOR press release was used to stimulate stock transactions and generate investment and trust in Viva Ventures and Vivakor. This was a classic pump and dump. VIVAKOR issued mis-information to drive up their stock price and then the directors dumped their worthless stock options into the heated market. At the March 20, 2019 SITLA meeting it was shown by a member of the public that Viva Ventures Oil Sands Inc. had an expired business registration and thus was not authorized to do business with SITLA or anyone in Utah. Further questions were raised at the meeting about this transaction by Director Foote and Director Woodbury. however the board still approved the contract. Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs represented Viva Ventures Oil Sands at the public meeting and testified on behalf of the company in their effort to gain approval from the board for an OBA they had no intention of executing. Here is a portion of his statement: “Um I’m here, I’m an elected official in this state. I’m very vested in this community and our our company is as well” …. Most absurdly he claimed they would clean up mother nature’s mess in Eastern Utah:

“This land owned by sitla, the sitla property can be successfully a remediated we view it all the same it is remediation whether we are cleaning up a oil spills in the middle east or we like to say we are cleaning up mother nature’s mess in eastern Utah” -Trent Staggs

Trent Staggs says he will clean up mother natures mess. Here is an area Vivakor will “remediate”

Mr Woodbury pointed out that remediation is not the same as subsurface mining. SITLA director, David Ure vouched for Viva Ventures and encouraged the approval. It was stated by Jerry Mansfield that they have a process to check if a company is licensed to do business in Utah before they sign the lease.

Why doesn’t the staff verify the license of an applicant for an OBA before spending staff time and resources on creating an OBA that may never be signed?

What follow up has been done on this contract why has the board and the public not been told that the deal never went through?

How much time and money was spent on this OBA arrangement?

What will the board do to keep from being used like this to manipulate stock prices?

Tar sands and oil shale are frequently used as a tool for scamming investors

This board has a duty to respond to the repeated use of SITLA lands, lease holds, resources and staff to perpetuate false value in impossible plans to turn rocks into oil. How many companies will you aid in defrauding communities, investors, tax payers and most importantly the school trust?

Here are some of the tar sands and oil shale projects which have used SITLA

and never completed there project or made money for SITLA: US Oil Sands now renamed 2020 resources, Red Leaf Resources, MCW Energy now renamed as Petroteq energy and  Enefit. These companies have however generated significant financial investments from investors and local communities. Although none of these companies are profitable they do pay large salaries to their ceo’s.

Shame on SITLA for continuing to ignore this scam.