All in vein?
Mining is not an industry that garners big support in the modern-day Roaring Fork Valley. But art is a whole other thing. In a townwhere art galleries and artist studios are proliferating, this increasing focus on art could be key to ending a decades-long dispute about a mining venture.
The owners of theMystic Eagle Quarry, 9 mileswest ofCarbondale, are trying to swing public sentiment to their side by ramping up a dreamto turn the mine into somethingmore palatable than an industrial operation— aworking mine/artists colony. The plan would allow carvers to order up a chunk of size-specific rock and chisel away in the cool confines of the mine while tourists file through to observe theworks-in-progress.
The idea already has wings, so to speak.
Carver JeremyRussell started chiseling a huge eagle into one wall of alabaster in the mine in 2000. The head juts out of the wall where sweeping chisel marks hint at the wings to come. Butwork in the mine has been stopped while a legal dispute between the owners, Ebram Stone LLC, and the Forest Service winds its way through the courts.
“If thiswas some big corporation, this wouldn’t be happening,” said Robert Congdon, who started the mine in 1991 using prospecting rights granted through an 1872 mining law.
This latest push comes after the mine has been at odds with Pitkin County and the U.S. Forest Service, at different times and over various issues, since 1992. It has been able to operate only in sporadic bursts since 2003 because of environmental restrictions and legal battles.
The latest sticking point is centered on the right to mine alabaster and marble yearround; the mine’s owners argue that the mine can’t be viable on a part-time basis.
But the Forest Service contends that archaic mining rules compel mine owners to prove they have commercially viable veins of marble, not just a lot of alabaster, which the agency puts in the same class as gravel.
Also, some of the closest neighbors across Colorado 133 in the SwissVillage Subdivision have expressed concerns that it could cause noise and other problems. Residents blame past mine explosions for cracking walls and breaking windows.
The Pitkin County Commissioners have weighed in on the issue on the side ofhomeowners and the wildlife. So have 11 environmental groups.
Congdon, a former coal miner who is now a consultant for Mystic Eagle, stirred up all this controversy when he hacked into an outwardly unremarkable hillside in the Avalanche Creek area in the early ’90s. He recognized that ancient geological forces had tipped the land in that area forward and then back when Mount Sopris and ElephantMountainwere forced upward, leaving a thick, sloping deposit of rock. An ancient sea had transformed calcium cit- rate into alabaster and calcium carbonate into marble. Water pressure also formed a translucent stone called anhydrite.
All are suitable for works of art or for artistic touches in home decorating.
Before the operationwas shut down, the Mystic Eagle Quarry sent pieces around the country for building projects. The quarry’s stone is on fireplace mantels, columns and countertops in private homes. The wall behind the City Council dais in Grand Junction City Hall is made of Mystic Eagle rock. Crushed leftovers of stone cutting have been sprinkled onWestern Slope orchards as fertilizer. Artworks in the high-end White Dog Gallery in Carbondale were carved by Russell from the mine’s alabaster and anhydrite.
“I’ve certainly caught some of the fire about the mine,” said White Dog owner AlanWeaver. “The mine is an amazing asset to the Carbondale arts scene.”
For now, the mine remains hidden behind a metal front painted the same color as the surrounding rocks. It takes some serious hammering on a bolt to slide the door open.
The inside can only be described as ghostly. Thewalls are mostly the white of alabaster. Everything is covered in fine powder thatwafts up fromfootsteps like flour. A22-ton Dremel tool sits silent as does a 15-ton loader. Twelve-ton blocks have been cut into one wall, and a steep 320-foot corridor has been carved to a second area that transitions fromthe alabaster and starts to get into the marble that looks like chunky dark rock.
Congdon said there are 100 tons of rock in the mine just waiting to be cut.
Pack rat nests dot the rockstrewn floor. Congdon nudges one with the toe of his boot.
“Between the pack rats and the bureaucrats, it’s very tough being a miner today,” he said.
In 2007, Congdon brought in a new mine owner, Walter Brown, to try to help settle the mine disputes. Brown, an attorney and retired municipal judge in Glenwood Springs, said he saw the potential in the mine the first time he visited.
“I thought the permit would be approved fairly quickly,” he said with a laugh.
The Mountain States Legal Foundation joined the mine bandwagon early this year. The organization, which takes on cases that involve maintaining a free market and the right to use private property, filed an appeal against the latest Forest Service ruling.
JeffreyMcCoy, theMountain States attorney handling the case, said similar cases have been cropping up around the country and what happens at theMystic Eagle could be precedent setting.
WhileMcCoyworks the legal end, Congdon and Brown have been toiling in the court of public opinion. In two months, they have collected nearly 4,000 signatures of residentswhowould like to see the mine be opened to artists and tourists.
On July 5, they plan to give a presentation about the Mystic Eagle dream to the public at a reception in a new sculpture courtyard at the White Dog Gallery.
The public can glimpse a bit of the mine there, but the eagle taking shape inside the mine has become the stuff of legend around Carbondale. The most common question residents askwhen the subject of the mine is raised is, “Is it open to the public?” The second is, “Is the eagle still there?”
“I hear so much support for reopening the mine,” Brown said. “Everybody wins if the mine opens.”