Utah is home to the first Tar Sands Mine in the U.S.
US Oil Sands, a Canadian-owned company and the owner of the first tar sands mine in the U.S., has reorganized after a bankruptcy and plans to continue mining and processing on the Tavaputs Plateau in the Uintah Basin in northeastern Utah. Extracting oil from tar sands requires strip mining and a complex water-intensive process to separate out the bitumen that is used to create the crude oil. The mine has damaged the wildlife habitat and endangered the watershed.
Blue Sky Institute 