IT'S THE PITS!!!Feb 24, 2012
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Santa Rita Mine
It's a long way down
trucks on one of the roads. Can you see them?
| Feb 24 A day of Mining The history of this area is based on mining---silver mining, gold, zinc, lead, and copper. Today we went to see some of the active mines, hoping for a tour. We started off about 10 miles from our KOA, with the Santa Rita mine, owned by Freeport-McMoRan (purchased from Phelps Dodge in 2006?). The huge open-pit mine was once the largest in the world, but has been surpassed by Chuquicamata in Chile. It is perhaps the oldest mining site still being used in the American southwest. Apaches, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans have all obtained native copper and copper ore from this site, which in the 19th century was a tunnel mine. The present-day open-pit mining operation was begun in 1910. It is the third oldest open pit copper mine in the world. It was awesome! It is so wide that the part you can see from the roadside observation stand requires turning your head. You can’t see it all with one look. It is also incredibly deep. Those enormous trucks were teeny-tiny on the roads in the mine. After the Santa Rita, we found the Cobre mine, then went to Hurley, NM, the town where until 2005 Freeport-McMoRan ran a huge smelter for the copper from the area. The town looks like a town that was once a thriving mining town, completely imploded, and is now being refurbished by the company….there are miles of new sidewalks, a brand new playground with beautiful equipment, etc, and there are no people. It was really weird. We ate a wonderful lunch at a neat Mexican restaurant, and then wandered the town. At first we were not too impressed, but the town grew on both of us the more we saw. There is an old historic downtown section, a 2500 student Western NM Univ, several art galleries….feels like a town trying to become a ‘mountain tourist community’. Just before dinner, we went south of town to try to see the Tyrone mine, another open pit mine. I read somewhere that Freeport-McMoRan has already spent over $118 million in reclamation from that mine alone, but again, no tour. Then we went back to the Santa Rita overlook to get pictures with late afternoon sun. Tomorrow we will head to Alamogordo. We will see how we do with no side mirror. I have called several places from the Winnebago list of service places to see if someone can fix our mirror, but no one has called me back. I am assuming that an entire assembly will need to be ordered, so I am checking places that are 2 weeks down the road. I hate the thought of no mirror. |
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