Mining set to return to Leadville

LEADVILLE – Hosannas are in the air in Leadville, a one-time mining town soon to resume its mining ways. This time, however, townspeople are less innocent.

Production at the Climax Mine, once the world’s largest producer of molybdenum and now owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Golde Inc., is to resume in 2010. The company intends to invest $500 million into a modern ore-processing mill and other infrastructure.

Three-hundred-and-fifty people will be employed after construction ends. In contrast, the mine employed more than 3,000 people in the late 1970s, some of them commuting from as far away as Frisco and Salida.

The Leadville Herald-Democrat reports ebullience, but also caution. “This gives us our identity back as a mining community,” said Ken Chlouber, who worked at Climax before becoming a state senator.

Carl Miller, a Climax worker of 27 years and also a retired state legislator, said renewed mining will give Leadville jobs, a tax base and some stability.

But the current mayor, Bud Elliott, who owns a motel, never knew Leadville’s rip-roaring mining past except by reputation. These will, he says, be exciting times.

The mine closed in 1981 because of a glut of molybdenum – which hardens steel, among dozens of other uses – on the world market. In 2001, prices still remained depressed.

But then demand surged. The story is partly told in China, which until 2002 exported molybdenum. Now it imports it.

In 2005, with global demand for molybdenum doubled from 1981, the owner of Climax – then Phelps Dodge – began taking a long, hard look at a potential reopening. The company also mines molybdenum at Henderson, north of the Eisenhower Tunnel.

Writing inCentral Colorado Magazine, mining expert Steve Voynick explained that even a few years ago, the price of moly wallowed at $2.50 per pound, but the worldwide boom of the last four years has pushed it to sustained prices of more than $30 per pound. Production costs are estimated at $3.50 a pound, according to a press release from the company.

Annual production of 30 million pounds is expected but with the potential doubling of production.

But remembering Leadville’s shell-shocked ways after the 1981 closing, many people who welcome the mine reopening caution against too warm of an embrace. An undiversified town, points out Voynick and others, is vulnerable to the same jolt as the one that occurred 25 years ago.

That crash in 1981 hammered Leadville. Housing prices plummeted as families fled to jobs elsewhere. Those who arrived in their wake largely worked in the resort sectors along the Interstate 70 corridor.

When it operated, Climax paid enormous amounts of property taxes. Leadville had one of the best-financed school districts in the state. In recent years it has been one of the poorest, unable at times even to repair leaking roofs.

Efforts to develop a tourism economy based on Ski Copper or other attractions have also fallen short. For a time, snowshoes were manufactured in Leadville but then shifted to a location with lower operating costs. Proposals to host calling centers or other ancillary services to the I-70 resorts never amounted to much.

Mining draws fight in Crested Butte

CRESTED BUTTE – The line of battle in Crested Butte about a proposed molybdenum mine on Mt. Emmons is becoming clearer. Some 60 groups – towns, homeowners’ associations and environmental organizations – have coalesced into something called the Red Lady Coalition. Red Lady is the informal name for the mountain.

The coalition, led by John Norton, a special consultant to Crested Butte Mountain Resort, is asking for a review of the full potential of the mine over 70 years, what it calls the “big bite.”

The owners of the mineral deposit, U.S. Energy Corp. and Kobex, want to submit a 10-year plan that envisions extraction of only the highest-grade ore at a rate of 6,000 tons per day. If, after 10 years, the company wants to expand mining operations, it would then need additional approval from the U.S. Forest Service

“A 70-year mining operation would have significantly greater socio-economic and environmental impacts than a mine lasting 10 years,” said Norton.

The coalition is drawing attention to concerns that the Gunnison River and its tributaries might be sullied.

While Crested Butte seems to teem with over-my-dead-body opposition, there’s also a more moderate stance in the Gunnison

Valley among those aware that it takes molybdenum to build ski lifts as well as steel edges on skis and snowboards.

Yet another touch of irony is in Crested Butte’s economic past. It is often described as a “real town,” as distinguished from a Vail or Snowmass Village. But the key physical difference is a result of its mining history. Before scenery started being a bankable commodity, Crested Butte was a coal-mining town, a vocation it continued until the 1950s.

County considers Bush impeachment

TELLURIDE – The San Miguel County commissioners are talking about a resolution that would call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. Faced with a petition from residents of Telluride to that same effect, the Telluride Town Council adopted a similar resolution earlier this year.

The county’s talk was initiated by County Commissioner Art Goodtimes. He said he wants to adopt the impeachment resolution because of the apparent lack of effective “protest to blunt this administration’s push toward war” with Iran, reportsThe Telluride Watch.

“I know it’s not our purview, but I would like us to take a solid look at what’s being claimed or alleged,” Goodtimes said.

The commissioners are talking about public hearings, in both the ultra-liberal Telluride area and conservative-leaning Norwood.

In addition to adopting budgets, reviewing ambulance equipment and other such things that county commissioners normally do, the San Miguel commissioners at a recent meeting also adopted resolutions regarding the rights of indigenous peoples and another one in remembrance of the genocide of Armenians during World War I.

Copper Mountain adds ads to lifts

COPPER MOUNTAIN – Copper Mountain is among the ski areas now putting trail maps onto chair lifts so riders can study them on their way up the mountain. At Copper, those maps also contain advertising.

The advertisements were controversial when the Aspen Skiing Co. asked to experiment with the advertisements on chair lifts five years ago. Two years ago, the Forest Service issued a rule that said that the ads were within an “interior” space on the maps, similar to the interior of a mid-mountain restaurant, and hence would be permitted.

The Summit Daily News says that the chair lift maps results in less trash on the mountain at Copper Mountain, although ski area officials also acknowledge recycling bins at upper lift terminals helps.

Vail Resorts has no policy about chair-lift advertisements but prefers not to because of “the type of experience it wants to provide” on its ski mountains, says Kelly Ladyga, corporate spokeswoman.

Prince sells one of his Aspen homes

ASPEN – Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan has taken his 56,000-square-foot home near Aspen off the market. The price tag had been $135 million.

But he has sold an ancillary property nearby, a 14,000-square-foot house located on 66.5 acres. The sales price was $36.5 million.The Aspen Times says that may be the highest price ever paid for a single-family home in the Aspen area.

Two much-larger sales have been recorded in recent years, says theTimes, but for larger properties: $47 million for a 949-acre ranch and $46 million for a 650-acre ranch.

The Aspen Times reports that documents link the sale to the Soffers, a prominent family in Florida that has developed a Florida project called Aventura, as well as a high-rise condo community in Las Vegas.

Town phases out coal in schools

OAK CREEK – In Oak Creek, a town founded in 1907 because of its coal deposits, plans are being drawn up to end the burning of coal to heat local schools. Instead, ground-source heat pumps are to be installed, supplemented by propane gas.

The school district, South Routt, is among only two of Colorado’s 179 districts to still use coal.

The Steamboat Pilot & Today explains that the coal is messy but also labor intensive. Somebody must shovel the ashes from the boiler morning, noon, evening and again at bedtime – altogether about five hours per day, resulting in enough ashes to fill three to five 55-gallon barrels.

– Allen Best

Mining set to return to Leadville

LEADVILLE – Hosannas are in the air in Leadville, a one-time mining town soon to resume its mining ways. This time, however, townspeople are less innocent.

Production at the Climax Mine, once the world’s largest producer of molybdenum and now owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Golde Inc., is to resume in 2010. The company intends to invest $500 million into a modern ore-processing mill and other infrastructure.

Three-hundred-and-fifty people will be employed after construction ends. In contrast, the mine employed more than 3,000 people in the late 1970s, some of them commuting from as far away as Frisco and Salida.

The Leadville Herald-Democrat reports ebullience, but also caution. “This gives us our identity back as a mining community,” said Ken Chlouber, who worked at Climax before becoming a state senator.

Carl Miller, a Climax worker of 27 years and also a retired state legislator, said renewed mining will give Leadville jobs, a tax base and some stability.

But the current mayor, Bud Elliott, who owns a motel, never knew Leadville’s rip-roaring mining past except by reputation. These will, he says, be exciting times.

The mine closed in 1981 because of a glut of molybdenum – which hardens steel, among dozens of other uses – on the world market. In 2001, prices still remained depressed.

But then demand surged. The story is partly told in China, which until 2002 exported molybdenum. Now it imports it.

In 2005, with global demand for molybdenum doubled from 1981, the owner of Climax – then Phelps Dodge – began taking a long, hard look at a potential reopening. The company also mines molybdenum at Henderson, north of the Eisenhower Tunnel.

Writing inCentral Colorado Magazine, mining expert Steve Voynick explained that even a few years ago, the price of moly wallowed at $2.50 per pound, but the worldwide boom of the last four years has pushed it to sustained prices of more than $30 per pound. Production costs are estimated at $3.50 a pound, according to a press release from the company.

Annual production of 30 million pounds is expected but with the potential doubling of production.

But remembering Leadville’s shell-shocked ways after the 1981 closing, many people who welcome the mine reopening caution against too warm of an embrace. An undiversified town, points out Voynick and others, is vulnerable to the same jolt as the one that occurred 25 years ago.

That crash in 1981 hammered Leadville. Housing prices plummeted as families fled to jobs elsewhere. Those who arrived in their wake largely worked in the resort sectors along the Interstate 70 corridor.

When it operated, Climax paid enormous amounts of property taxes. Leadville had one of the best-financed school districts in the state. In recent years it has been one of the poorest, unable at times even to repair leaking roofs.

Efforts to develop a tourism economy based on Ski Copper or other attractions have also fallen short. For a time, snowshoes were manufactured in Leadville but then shifted to a location with lower operating costs. Proposals to host calling centers or other ancillary services to the I-70 resorts never amounted to much.

Mining draws fight in Crested Butte

CRESTED BUTTE – The line of battle in Crested Butte about a proposed molybdenum mine on Mt. Emmons is becoming clearer. Some 60 groups – towns, homeowners’ associations and environmental organizations – have coalesced into something called the Red Lady Coalition. Red Lady is the informal name for the mountain.

The coalition, led by John Norton, a special consultant to Crested Butte Mountain Resort, is asking for a review of the full potential of the mine over 70 years, what it calls the “big bite.”

The owners of the mineral deposit, U.S. Energy Corp. and Kobex, want to submit a 10-year plan that envisions extraction of only the highest-grade ore at a rate of 6,000 tons per day. If, after 10 years, the company wants to expand mining operations, it would then need additional approval from the U.S. Forest Service

“A 70-year mining operation would have significantly greater socio-economic and environmental impacts than a mine lasting 10 years,” said Norton.

The coalition is drawing attention to concerns that the Gunnison River and its tributaries might be sullied.

While Crested Butte seems to teem with over-my-dead-body opposition, there’s also a more moderate stance in the Gunnison Valley among those aware that it takes molybdenum to build ski lifts as well as steel edges on skis and snowboards.

Yet another touch of irony is in Crested Butte’s economic past. It is often described as a “real town,” as distinguished from a Vail or Snowmass Village. But the key physical difference is a result of its mining history. Before scenery started being a bankable commodity, Crested Butte was a coal-mining town, a vocation it continued until the 1950s.

County considers Bush impeachment

TELLURIDE – The San Miguel County commissioners are talking about a resolution that would call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. Faced with a petition from residents of Telluride to that same effect, the Telluride Town Council adopted a similar resolution earlier this year.

The county’s talk was initiated by County Commissioner Art Goodtimes. He said he wants to adopt the impeachment resolution because of the apparent lack of effective “protest to blunt this administration’s push toward war” with Iran, reportsThe Telluride Watch.

“I know it’s not our purview, but I would like us to take a solid look at what’s being claimed or alleged,” Goodtimes said.

The commissioners are talking about public hearings, in both the ultra-liberal Telluride area and conservative-leaning Norwood.

In addition to adopting budgets, reviewing ambulance equipment and other such things that county commissioners normally do, the San Miguel commissioners at a recent meeting also adopted resolutions regarding the rights of indigenous peoples and another one in remembrance of the genocide of Armenians during World War I.

Copper Mountain adds ads to lifts

COPPER MOUNTAIN – Copper Mountain is among the ski areas now putting trail maps onto chair lifts so riders can study them on their way up the mountain. At Copper, those maps also contain advertising.

The advertisements were controversial when the Aspen Skiing Co. asked to experiment with the advertisements on chair lifts five years ago. Two years ago, the Forest Service issued a rule that said that the ads were within an “interior” space on the maps, similar to the interior of a mid-mountain restaurant, and hence would be permitted.

The Summit Daily News says that the chair lift maps results in less trash on the mountain at Copper Mountain, although ski area officials also acknowledge recycling bins at upper lift terminals helps.

Vail Resorts has no policy about chair-lift advertisements but prefers not to because of “the type of experience it wants to provide” on its ski mountains, says Kelly Ladyga, corporate spokeswoman.

Prince sells one of his Aspen homes

ASPEN – Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan has taken his 56,000-square-foot home near Aspen off the market. The price tag had been $135 million.

But he has sold an ancillary property nearby, a 14,000-square-foot house located on 66.5 acres. The sales price was $36.5 million.The Aspen Times says that may be the highest price ever paid for a single-family home in the Aspen area.

Two much-larger sales have been recorded in recent years, says theTimes, but for larger properties: $47 million for a 949-acre ranch and $46 million for a 650-acre ranch.

The Aspen Times reports that documents link the sale to the Soffers, a prominent family in Florida that has developed a Florida project called Aventura, as well as a high-rise condo community in Las Vegas.

Town phases out coal in schools

OAK CREEK – In Oak Creek, a town founded in 1907 because of its coal deposits, plans are being drawn up to end the burning of coal to heat local schools. Instead, ground-source heat pumps are to be installed, supplemented by propane gas.

The school district, South Routt, is among only two of Colorado’s 179 districts to still use coal.

The Steamboat Pilot & Today explains that the coal is messy but also labor intensive. Somebody must shovel the ashes from the boiler morning, noon, evening and again at bedtime – altogether about five hours per day, resulting in enough ashes to fill three to five 55-gallon barrels.

– Allen Best

New quad draws objections in Vail

VAIL – There’s some backlash in Vail to a proposal to replace an older lift, Chair 5, with a high-speed quad. The lift lines there are legendary, often 45 minutes on powder days. The new high-speed lift will reduce or eliminate lift lines, allowing skiers to yo-yo in Vail’s famous Back Bowls far more rapidly.

But Tony Ryerson, in a letter published in theVail Daily, maintains that faster is not always better. Lost, he says, will be one of the last areas on Vail Mountain of non-bump but expert-level terrain. More skiers, he says, will also cause less sense of serenity and the “feeling of one’s smallness relative to the area around you” that are “the very essence of skiing.”

“Sundown Express will destroy forever the kind of natural Back Bowl skiing that has set us apart from the rest of the country’s ski areas, and replace it with that homogenized, rushed skiing that requires us now to wear helmets and constantly check over our shoulders lest we get hit.”