Memorandum Agenda Item 11e 05/15/2000

• Board Meeting Date: 5/15/2000
• Description: Agenda Item 11e May 22-23, 2000 Board Meeting Alamosa River Watershed Project
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

L<B>and</B> <B>mine<B> Page 6 of 20
The warning that acid would increase as a result of the project"is
4111) completely contrary to ... my perception of what we were doing," he said.
Roper said he believed the acid would decrease, as he told the state mine
board.
"I firmly—I always—believed that,"he said.
State officials, in any event, didn't question the claim.
They were busy listening to elected officials in the San Luis Valley who
wanted the 100 jobs Roper was promising. The jobs would pump money
into the economy, Roper predicted in meetings with local officials and
mining regulators.
Dave Shelton, who headed the Mined Land Reclamation Division, said he
doesn't recall meeting with Roper, but he recalls a barrage of support for the
project from San Luis Valley leaders.
He heard no voices in opposition.
Still, said Shelton, who is now second-in-command of the company that is
cleaning up Rocky Flats,"I think there was a decent review(of the project)."
But regulators had to rely on Galactic's word because nothing was built yet,
Shelton said.
Besides, said Barry, who was Shelton's supervisor, Colorado mining laws,
• drafted by a pro-business legislature, weren't meant to stop mining. They
were intended to encourage it.
"It was clear... that the job of the Mined Land Board was not to deny
permits, but to allow mining with proper control and with proper
reclamation," Barry said. "Hardly ever in my experience there did we deny a
permit. We sent people back to the drawing boards a lot, but the number of
outright denials was very limited."
With little opposition, the project was approved in October 1984, two months
after Galactic submitted the application.
Now the only thing Galactic needed to open the mine was money—lots of
money. They got it. But it wasn't nearly enough.
An unlikely investor steps in
Pulling the face off a mountain isn't cheap. Opening the Summitville mine
eventually cost$47 million—$14 million more than the company expected.
Even as the state was approving the permit in October 1984, mine manager
Roger Leonard wasn't sure he could meet the payroll for the next month,
company documents show.
Friedland and financial officers shopped the Summitville project to several
• banks and sought joint ventures with other mining companies. But by early
1985 he hadn't gotten a nibble, possibly because it was known in the mining
community that mining giant Anaconda had rejected the same site.
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