Climax Mine-# 5 Dam Seepwater Pipeline Replacement

The Climax #5 dam pump back line is located at Freeport McMoRan’s Climax Mine near Leadville, CO. The project included 5800’ 24” hdpe, pigging vault with 24” knife valve and stainless steel flanged settings. This job included all fusing with data log hydro-testing and installation. Randy Kurtz served as superintendent on this project.

Questa Mine: Goat Hill North Regrade

Chevron’s Questa Mine (formerly owned by MolyCorp) is a molybdenum mine located near Questa, NM. In 2004-2005, Ron Kurtz (under previous employer) managed and implemented a large-scale tailings slide repair and regrading project. The project involved excavation and regrading of 1.3 million cubic yards of tailings on very steep canyon slopes at Chevron’s Goat Hill North tailings depository site. Additionally, underdrains were constructed throughout the site.

Climax Mine: Robinson Tailings Pond Capping

The Robinson Tailings Pond is located at Freeport McMoRan’s Climax Mine near Leadville, CO. In 2005, an effort was made to complete the last 95 acres remaining uncapped on the tailings pond surface. This capping project was completed under the management of Ron Kurtz (under previous employers). The project had three primary components: capping the surface of the tailings pond; construction of the East Side Channel and 2 Dam Spillway; and re-sloping and capping of the 2 Dam face. The 95 acres of capping were in the wettest part of the tailings pond with the most limited access. The design required that an open water pond remain in the very center of the area. Capping this area required placing a geo-grid fabric over the entire area and hauling, placing, and grading cover materials from the open pit.

Creating the spillways involved excavating, grading, and riprap armoring the channels, culvert installation, and concrete spillway construction. Capping the dam face called for hauling, placing, and grading pit run materials on a 2:1 slope over an existing wet tailings pond. All of the heavy dirt work has been completed with no reportable safety or environmental incidents. Kenneth Carlson, Robin Bay and Wayne Erickson (under Habitat Management, Inc.) also provided the soils and revegetation expertise for the Robinson Tailings Pond reclamation project for Climax Mine from 1999 to 2008.

GCC Tijeras: Corral Canyon Regrade & Reclamation

In 2008, Gene Wenninger, Wayne Erickson, and Kenneth Carlson were contracted to recreate the historic ephemeral drainage channel which once ran through the Corral Canyon, located at the Tijeras Limestone Quarry in Tijeras, NM. One portion of the canyon had been filled in with overburden materials during past mining activities. Habitat Management, Inc. provided project oversight, heavy equipment work, contract and budget management, and reporting.

Earthwork included excavation, channel construction and stabilization, and slope grading, contouring, and armoring. Revegetation activities included seedbed preparation, fertilization, seeding, transplanting, and mulching as required by the permit modification. Whenever possible revegetation and channel restoration work was performed concurrently.

GCC Pueblo Regrade & Reclamation

GCC’s Pueblo Plant is located near Pueblo, CO. In 2008 and 2009, Habitat Management, Inc. (Gene Wenninger, Wayne Erickson, and Kenneth Carlson) was the general contractor, overseeing the design and reconstruction of both sides of the mine’s main entrance road. This project was designed with cutting-edge Natural Regrade technology to design drainage channels and surface contours to mimic natural, stable systems. The designs for slope stabilization were also incorporated into the stockpile construction throughout the mine site.

Construction work to date has included: excavation and contour furrowing to Natural Regrade design specifications, rock channel construction, and fine grading. Additionally, all sites were revegetated with broadcast seeding and stabilized with hydromulch and tackifier. Habitat Management also provided all erosion and sediment control feature installation and maintenance.

This project has been nominated for a GCC corporate Environmental Award.

Climax Mine: Searle Gulch Historic Mine Reclamation

The Searle Gulch Historic Mining Area is located at the Climax Mine and consisted of multiple abandoned waste rock and tailings piles from the late 1800s to early 1900s. The project was located between 10,500 and 11,500 feet in elevation in a sometimes dense subalpine forest with some areas at or above treeline. The construction and heavy equipment work ($1.2 million) was managed by Ron and Randy Kurtz, (under previous employer), while the environmental and revegetation aspects of the project ($311,000) were managed by Kenneth Carlson and Robin Bay (under Habitat Management, Inc.).

Temporary access haul roads were constructed to each abandoned mine site. The waste rock was loaded and hauled to active tailing stockpile areas within the Mine. Each area was then graded to the approximate original contour and topsoil, lime, and biosolids amendments were hauled, placed, and incorporated to facilitate revegetation. The operators and the trucks handled the difficult and remote conditions extremely well leading the Climax managers to add additional quantities to the contract. In addition to hauling, erosion and stormwater management measures were installed and maintained, drainage issues were mitigated, and gabions were constructed.

In all, 240,000 cubic yards of waste rock were removed and hauled, 43 acres were regraded, 18,000 cubic yards of soil amendments were hauled, 164 gabions were installed, and 43 acres were revegetated.

Twentymile Mine: Clay Handling

Peabody’s Twentymile Coal Company’s Twentymile Mine is located near Oak Creek, CO. Habitat Management, Inc. was contracted to handle 100,000 cubic yards of clay. Project implementation involved:

« back