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<br />l'age ~ or ~U <br /> <br />Leonard, a metallurgist by training. <br /> <br />Leonard said the other Summitville workers were appalled as they watched <br />Roper tear apart the numbers they had carefully put together. <br /> <br />"And finally Ed made it pretty clear that if you didn't get with the program, <br />that you needn't be here - in other words, you didn't need to be employed <br />by Galactic," Leonard said. <br /> <br />According to Leonard, Roper said the idea was to get Bank of America into <br />the project. Once in, the bank wouldn't be able to cut off funding, Roper <br />believed. <br /> <br />Leonard recalled Rope~s saying: "It's just like getting someone pregnant- <br />there is no half-pregnant." <br /> <br />Roper said in a deposition that he couldn't recall the Del Norte meeting. <br /> <br />Roper also said he doesn't recall using the phrase about pregnancy and <br />wasn't trying to trick the Bank of America into investing in the project. And <br />he pointed out that the business plan passed inspection by Bechtel before <br />being submitted to the Bank of America. <br /> <br />Roper testified under a federal grant of immunity from criminal prosecution, <br />admitting during the deposition that his legal fees were being paid by <br />Fnedland. <br /> <br />The loan came through in the summer of 1985. But to begin making <br />payments on it in 1986, Galactic had to start squeezing out gold by the <br />following spring. <br /> <br />That meant rushing to build the mine in the dead of winter. At 11,800 feet in <br />the Colorado Rockies, the decision proved disastrous. <br /> <br />Winter brings avalanche of risk <br /> <br />As fall crept toward winter, the mine was nowhere near ready. <br /> <br />An interoffice memo in November 1985 estimated that the area in which the <br />ore would be treated with cyanide - called the heap-leach pad - was only <br />18 percent complete, and the cost was overbudget by 121 percent. <br /> <br />Leonard, the mine manager, warned Roper that working through the winter <br />in the high country would be difficult. In fact. just keeping the dirt road to the <br />mine plowed would be a struggle. Back in Vancouver, Galactic executives <br />weren't convinced. <br /> <br />Friedland said he knew winter construction would be expensive. <br /> <br />But, he added, reputable companies believed it could be done. <br /> <br />''With the benefit of hindsight, I have learned that I wouldn't even build my <br />home in the wintertime," Friedland later said in a deposition. <br /> <br />Galactic's Canadian engineering consultant, Klohn Leonoff, went along with <br />working in winter, as did Bechtel and the Bank of America, Friedland pointed <br />out. <br /> <br />http://www.denver-rrnn.comlnews/0507smmt!.shtm! <br /> <br />517100 <br />