Molybdenum/Mount Emmons | SDSG Sustainable Library

Introduction By: Jessica Smith, Colorado School of Mines

The Mount Emmons mine controversy in Colorado has been called the “longest running mine battle in the West,” and the way that history is told has much to do with who is doing the telling.

In 1977 AMAX, then one of the world’s largest mining companies, began efforts to plan and propose an underground mine to access a major molybdenum deposit on Mount Emmons. That mountain, locally referred to as the “Red Lady” for how the sunrise hits the mountain, rises directly above the town of Crested Butte. The historic coal mines that had employed many residents there had closed by the 1950s, and by the 1970s the town was reinventing its cultural and economic identity as an outdoor mecca. At the same time as the mine was being planned and debated, the Mt. Crested Butte ski resort was under construction. Residents who viewed the mine as detrimental, if not disastrous to those efforts organized themselves into the High Country Citizens Alliance (HCCA) to oppose AMAX and the mine. Click Here to Read More

The organization (now renamed the High Country Conservation Advocates), remains vibrant through this writing in 2018 as a force for conservation in the region. The Crested Butte Town Council, buttressed by the charismatic Mayor Mitchell, officially took an anti-mining stance in 1979.

Anticipating challenges in public acceptance for the mine, AMAX organized an external affairs strategy that set a new high bar for community engagement by the mining industry. Building on the lessons the company learned in collaborating with environmental group in planning and permitting the Henderson Mine outside of Empire, AMAX prioritized an open planning process for the Mt. Emmons deposit. These activities included the Colorado Joint Review Process (CJRP), a mechanism that brought together multiple government agencies at local, state and federal levels to streamline the research, commenting, and permitting processes. Feedback from citizens, government agencies, and other organized groups were incorporated early into the planning process, and many of the studies conducted on the environmental and social impacts of the project in preparation of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) are available in this archive.

The CJRP became a model for joint permitting in eight other projects around the state, but did not quell local opposition, which focused chiefly in two areas: the boomtown growth associated with new mining projects and the environmental impacts of the proposed mine, mill, and associated infrastructure. While some residents welcomed the economic development associated with mining, others argued that it would endanger ongoing efforts to establish the region’s reputation for tourism and recreation. The EIS was eventually completed, but the project was never developed. AMAX stepped away from its initial phase of project development in 1982, citing a decline in the world molybdenum market. HCCA celebrated their departure as a victory for their movement.

For the next four decades, hopes and fears that a mine would be developed at Mt Emmons escalated each time molybdenum prices rose. Rights to the deposit and responsibility for the water treatment facilities that AMAX developed to clean up the historic mine pollution from Coal Creek passed from AMAX to U.S. Energy to Freeport McMoRan, which eventually entered into negotiations with Gunnison County and Crested Butte to withdraw mining claims from Mt Emmons.

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