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O'N V--00 a <br />P2-4 <br />Ms. Sandra L. Brown <br />Senior Environmental Protection Specialist <br />Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety <br />1313 Sherman Street, Room 215 <br />Denver, Colorado 80203 <br />Dear Sandra, <br />1.0 <br />na{ ? <br />My name is Judy Hammond and I have worked for Western Fuels in Nucla, <br />Colorado for 17 years. <br />I did not grow up in Nucla. I was a transplant to the area and I am what the <br />mining community considers a tramp miner. I have lived in Colorado all my <br />life and my father worked at Climax Molybdenum Co. in Leadville <br />Colorado. Yes, I am a miners daughter. <br />When you are young there things that you can never appreciate. Climax <br />Molybdenum poured so much money into the economy of Leadville that I <br />had the best schools a kid could ever hope for. I did not appreciate it then, <br />but when I got older I could look back and realize what mining did for all <br />the kids and families of that town. It was truly an incredible life. <br />I have worked for Silver, Gold, Oil Shale and Coal in my mining career and <br />I have been laid off from all these mines. I am now 58 years old and started <br />in mining in 1970. <br />When I came to Nucla in 1993 1 honestly thought that this job would <br />probably would not last either. I have now been here longer than any other <br />mine that I have worked for. <br />In all the years I have worked for mining companies this one is the one that <br />I have been the most proud of . When I worked for Silver and Gold the <br />reclamation aspect was virtually non existent. The tailings piles and <br />destruction of the land was a huge eye soar. The spent shale from the oil <br />shale industry still to this day has not been taken care of . The pollution of <br />the water in the Parachute creek basin is still a problem and it does not make <br />you feel proud that you have had a hand in creating another community's <br />problems. This is not the case with Western Fuels.