Diamond miners face suspicious rural crowd

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Like a diamond with many facets, the debate about diamond mining has numerous angles. Chief among them is whether state regulations will protect existing domestic water wells.

Water dominated the often emotional dialogue at a neighborhood meeting in Cherokee Park on Sept. 20. Nearly 90 rural residents quizzed employees and consultants for DiamonEx Ltd. about whether their exploration plan and possible open pit mine would rob water from their homes. They found the company's answers unsatisfactory.

Gary Tuttle, senior project manager for the consulting firm Tetra Tech, said DiamonEx would likely submit its application for an exploration permit to the county planning department in October or November. At the same time, the company needs to file an application for a commercial well in state water court.

County staff members acknowledged residents' concerns for their domestic wells. "We've identified the problem and said they [DiamonEx] need to bring good data," said Doug Ryan of the county health department.

Noise, dust, traffic, loss of wildlife and aesthetics were also of concern to neighbors, along with the disruption of a rural lifestyle created around 35- and 40-acre parcels in the Rabbit Creek area that once was the Sloan Ranch.

The proposed exploration site is located about 9.5 miles west of Highway 287 and 9 miles south of the Colorado-Wyoming border. Miners would access the project from West County Road 82E, a fork off Cherokee Park Road (CR 80C). The 170-acre project area is currently zoned O-Open, which allows for mining upon county commission approval of a special review. Exploration would disturb about three acres.

Residents complained that the county roads in the area are not adequately maintained for residential traffic and that heavy truck traffic would make matters worse.

Julian Stovall, one of the mining opposition organizers, said after the meeting that they hope to convince county officials that mining is incompatible with their rural residential neighborhood.

"It's no less a neighborhood because we have 30- to 40-acre parcels," Stovall said. "It was set up that way because of water availability."

He admitted that the county commissioners will be deciding what property rights are more important - mineral rights or residential rights.

DiamonEx secured mineral and surface rights to explore the Sloans Kimberlite Pipes in 2007. Several other exploration companies have also worked at the site over the last 30 years but never pursued commercial mining. Residents of the area back then told horror stories of putting up with numerous trucks hauling in ore from other locations for processing at the Sloan site. With this application, however, Larimer County would not allow DiamonEx to haul in ore from outside the area.

Mining representatives said they would excavate from 10,000 to 20,000 tons at the site and process ore down to a concentrate that will fit in 44-gallon drums, which will be evaluated in Canada.

At the neighborhood meeting, Mike Seed, exploration manager for DiamonEx, said the company would set up a portable density material separator to process the ore. It would operate from May to October, Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The company would need nine employees at the site during the exploration phase, which could last one to three years, he said.

The site would have security fencing but no lights because it is a daylight operation.

Seed said records from previous exploration work were inconclusive, so DiamonEx has decided to start over. "If it's quite clear it's a waste of time, we're out of here," Seed said.

If the kimberlite pipes produce enough quality diamonds to justify full-scale mining, DiamonEx will have to get another county permit for that phase. The mining officials offered no detail on size and amount of water needed should they proceed with open-pit mining.

"If it becomes a mine, it would be a significant industrial operation" for 10 to 15 years, said Dan O'Neill, managing director for DiamonEx.

Cherokee Park residents are coordinating their opposition to diamond mining through the web site www.lova4ever.org. Tuttle criticized the web site, however, saying much of the information about what could happen at a Larimer County mine is inaccurate.