Mining is tied to Southwest Colorado’s history and is rapidly becoming an integral part of the future. Reforms to the General Mining Law could reverberate loudly locally, as large-scale mining continues to step back into the region.

The biggest drill on the local horizon belongs to the Canadian-based Bolero Resources Corp. The company has entered into an agreement to purchase a massive molybdenum deposit immediately east of the town of Rico, paid a nonrefundable $100,000 deposit toward the $10 million purchase price and planned to close on the property this month. IT is estimated that the site could yield up to 273 million pounds of molybdenum, a greasy metal used to harden steel. For years, the price of molybdenum stagnated, but since 2002, it has risen from $2 to more than $35 a pound.

On another front, uranium is once again becoming a hot item in Southwest Colorado. A second uranium boom is taking shape in the region, courtesy of high prices for the radioactive ore along with a Department of Energy decision in July that opened 27,000 acres on the Uncompahgre Plateau to uranium mining.

With uranium fetching as much as $141 a pound on the spot market – well up from $43/pound a year ago – prospectors and mining companies are once again eyeing the desert of the Dolores River drainage. On July 7 of this year, the Department of Energy authorized 38 mineral leases with 10-year life spans and more than tripled the land available to uranium miners – 27,000 surface acres spanning San Miguel, Montrose and Mesa counties. A total of 4,800 claims had already been filed on this acreage, and the DOE is expecting activity on each of the 38 leases.

“Uranium mining is happening already in the region, and it’s going to gear up more and more in the near future,” said Bill Simon, of the Animas River Stakeholders Group. “Until a large reserve of uranium is located somewhere in the world, the focus is going to be on these smaller deposits in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah.”

On a smaller scale, interest in operations in Silverton and the La Plata Mountains is also being revived by higher prices. Working in favor of renewed mining is the high content of zinc in many of the ores, which continues to fetch nearly three times the amount of several years ago.

– Will Sands