As many of you know, Hard Rock Paving and Redi-Mix has asked the BLM for approval to more than double the size of its existing rock and gravel mining operation with an additional 50-acre open-pit mine expansion on BLM land on the lower flanks of Methodist Mountain. If this expansion is approved as proposed, one Salida’s most popular and heavily used multi-use non-motorized trails (The Solstice Trail) will unfortunately be included within the proposed expansion area and will be destroyed.
The Solstice Trail is a BLM approved non-motorized multiuse trail. Salida Mountain Trails (SMT) worked with the BLM over a 4-year period to complete the required Environment Assessment process, and then worked for 2 additional years in coordination with the BLM to plan the detailed trail route and fund/execute construction. During the trail planning period, BLM, SMT and Hard Rock mining resources met several times, and there was verbal agreement that our planned trail route/alignment would not overlap with their plans for expansion at that time. SMT volunteers were grateful for their verbal agreement at that time and willingness to coordinate with us on this.
The trail was completed as planned in June 2019 at a cost of approximately $60,000 (including all the volunteer hours and BLM staff time), and was funded utilizing a hard-earned State Trails Grant. Soon after its completion, Hard Rock contacted SMT to communicate that their plans had changed/expanded, and requested if SMT would agree to move the trail at Hard Rock’s expense to allow for their additional expansion plans. Unfortunately, there is not a suitable trail alignment anywhere near the present trail location.
Moving the trail would also be an unfortunate and irresponsible waste of public money in the way of federal tax dollars and state grant monies, as well as undermining years of local efforts by SMT volunteers and BLM employee staff time to review and approve the Solstice trail. In addition, it has been suggested in the media by Hard Rock that the Solstice Trail was not built exactly where it had been planned. The trail was in fact constructed within an acceptable corridor that was approved by the BLM in order to ensure a sustainable trail was ultimately built.
This past September, the BLM asked for initial public comments concerning Hark Rock’s proposed expansion, and received over 800 written comments from community members and local businesses. The BLM is now developing the required Environmental Analysis of the proposed open-pit mine expansion which will be published very soon. There will then be another final 30-day public comment period after which, the BLM will then issue their binding decision. Whatever your comments might be, SMT urges each any every member of our community to make your voices heard concerning use of your public lands. Please stay tuned our website and FB page for that latest info and when/how to submit your comments.
