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• to the residents (through payroll and purchases of goods and services) and to <br />the local governments of Delta County (through sales tax) of the Hawk's Nest <br />operation, even though the mine is physically located in Gunnison County. The <br />operation of Hawk's Nest does help to provide locally needed capital through <br />bank deposits (corporate and personal) and tax payments for private and public <br />developments in Delta County. <br />D. Discussion <br />The analysis presented in this chapter details the impact which WS CC has had <br />and will have on the demography and the economy of the study area. However, <br />several points of the analysis do require further discussion. <br />First, the analysis probably represents a liberal impact scenario. Relatively <br />liberal estimates of indirect employment resulting from coal employment were <br />used in the analysis. The multiplier of 1.5 was derived in Chapter II. in <br />the determination of this multiplier, it was assumed that the coal mining <br />• industry was the only direct employment industry in either Delta or Gunnison <br />Counties. While the coal industry is very important to the area, it could be <br />argued that other types of mining, agriculture and some manufacturing indus- <br />tries also provide direct employment, in addition, it was assumed that all <br />future direct and indirect employment opportunities related to the Hawk's Nest <br />operation would be filled by in-migrants. This does not preclude the hiring <br />of local residents, but it does imply that if local residents are hired the <br />resulting job vacancies would be filled eventually by in-migrants. Finally, <br />the average family size of 4.13 for in-migrating families is also relatively <br />liberal. This figure represents the average WS CC employee's total family <br />size. Since no information was available on the average family size of <br />indirect employees nor in-migrants, 4.13 was used in the analysis for all <br />types of employment related to WSCC. This discussion is intended only to <br />provide necessary caveats for the reader, and not to lessen the importance of <br />WSCC's impact on the study area. <br />Second, the analysis indicates that the impact of future increases in the WSCC <br />• workforce will be relatively minimal when compared to the 1975-1980 experience <br />in the study area and when compared to future developments planned in this <br />47 <br />