Utah operator fined for mining unleased federal coal

An upstart Utah coal operator has run afoul of the Bureau of Land Management for extracting federal coal in Emery County without authorization, according to a new report posted by the government’s watchdog agency.Bronco Utah Operations, which resurrected the old Emery Deep mine in 2016, was recently given permission to tunnel through federal coal so it could access state-owned coal without having to develop a new mine portal.But as Bronco’s crew bore the tunnel, it removed coal outsi