Northwest of Kanab, an undulating sea of red sand rises for several miles spanning the divide between Kanab Creek and the East Fork of the Virgin River.
On that southern Utah divide sits a parcel of state trust land that mineral developers hope will be the start of a massive sand-mining operation, yielding millions of tons of silica granules to be used for fracking wells in the West’s oil and gas fields.
But first Southern Red Sands, a new company behind the proposal, must secure water, 1,200 acre-feet a year, needed to process the sand.