Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
Does roadless have to mean jobless?
The battle over keeping certain forested areas roadless rages on.
Oxbow Mining | flickr user pauldineen
From the Post:
The 353 miners employed in Oxbow Mining’s Elk Creek mine, and 700 at neighboring coal mines, could become collateral damage in the debate in Denver and Washington, D.C., over how to manage 58.4 million acres of national forest land. The land was designated for protection as “roadless” in 2001, when President Bill Clinton ordered a moratorium on new road-building in an effort to keep the last wild forests pristine.
Ritter is considering whether to forward to the federal government an alternative state plan for the 4.1 million national forest acres in Colorado — a plan that would make an exception for coal mining and for ski areas and towns threatened by wildfire that want to remove beetle-killed trees.
Heck of an exception. The interests at odds with one another — the livelihoods of Colorado miners and the environment — are both worthy, but a law intended to preserve the environment that makes an exception for coal mining seems odd. Hence this provision:
The state plan would remove protection from 457,000 acres the federal government wants to keep roadless, including land around these mines that already has roads on it, but provide protection for 410,000 acres in forests that the federal government initially was not proposing to include under the roadless designation.
In some hurried searching, I haven’t tracked down a comparison map that would show the 457,000 acres that would lose protection vs. the 410,000 that would gain it, but here’s a Sept. 2009 roadless inventory map from the state’s Colorado Roadless Rule page (PDF).
Also check out the Post’s Oxbow Coal Mine photo slideshow.
And a little about the Oxbow Mining Elk Creek mine:
Oxbow Mining LLC’s (“OMI”) Elk Creek Mine, located in western Colorado’s beautiful North Fork Valley, produces 6 million tons of high-quality bituminous coal annually. The D-seam coal from this underground mining operation has high
BTU content and is low in ash, sulfur and mercury. Elk Creek’s coal is much sought after because it meets all environmental standards and is perfect for power generation needs.
Situated just north of the historic Somerset mine, Elk Creek is expected to produce more than 60 million tons of high quality coal from privately held and federally leased tracts over the next 10 years. Currently, Elk Creek’s production is on pace to make it one of the top five producing underground coal mines in the United States. Elk Creek coal quality has averaged consistently high BTU.
