The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS) has agreed to split its process for increasing Rocky Mountain Industrials’ (RMI) reclamation bond into two parts, phasing the 800% bond increase, from $366,179 to $3.2 million, over a period of several months as the state revises the company’s reclamation plan. 

A reclamation bond guarantees that a mining company will restore any land it mines to its original state, or a condition stipulated in the mining contract, if said company stops production. 

If the company doesn’t restore the land as required, the reclamation bond holds it financially responsible. Bond amounts are based on the worst-case scenario for completing final reclamation and are a combination of the current site conditions and a reclamation plan, according to DRMS.

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RMI currently mines the Mid-Continent limestone quarry north of Glenwood Springs. 

“It protects the taxpayers from, at least in theory, getting stuck with the cost of reclaiming a mine site if the mine operator abscones or abandons the site,” Heather McGregor, vice president of the Glenwood Springs Citizens’ Alliance, said.

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For now, RMI will only have to pay a bond of $489,758 for basic site reclamation, a 33% increase from the current bond of $366,179 to adjust for inflation. The increased bond is due Jan. 14. 

The proposed reclamation bond of $3.2 million, sent to RMI by the state in August, is nine times higher than the current bond because it includes the estimated cost to complete rock bolting work to stabilize the quarry headwall that collapsed, causing a 200 foot rock slide in January 2023.  

Based on the collapse, and a rock failure analysis and stability report, stabilization of the headwall is needed to ensure site safety, according to DRMS. Rock bolting is the only option that can be implemented within RMI’s current permit boundary and could be reasonably completed if the site were to immediately close. 

“What’s entailed in rock bolting is every 10 feet, drilling down through the unstable limestone layers, which is about 25 feet, and getting into the big base dolomite limestone layer that’s really, really deep, and anchoring those upper layers to that lower layer through using heavy steel cables,” McGregor said. “It’s costly and it’s somewhat dangerous to do that work.”

The only other stabilization option would be to continue mining the quarry headwall and remove the unstable layers, which would require expanding the mine’s boundaries. RMI has planned to expand the existing 20 acre quarry to a 321 acre open pit mine since 2018, but its proposal was rejected by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which owns the quarry site, earlier this year. 

The state originally gave RMI until Oct. 25 to secure price quotes for the rock bolting work from at least three contractors. RMI requested a 60 day extension on Oct. 25 and questioned the state’s inclusion of the rock bolting work in the reclamation bond. 

In the Oct. 25 letter, posted to LoveGlenwood.org, RMI stated “Our concerns lie with the addition of the rock bolting to the estimate at this time, particularly because rock bolting has not been approved by the BLM and is not included in our current reclamation plan.” 

The state granted the 60 day extension on Oct. 28, giving RMI until Dec. 24 to turn in its price quotes on the rock bolting work. The state will lower the bond if the average of the three quotes comes in lower than the cost estimated by DRMS. 

On Nov. 15, DRMS responded to RMI’s rock bolting questions and acknowledged that rock bolting is not in the current reclamation plan, although it had been included in a technical revision completed earlier this year, and agreed to split the bond issues in two. 

DRMS will update the existing reclamation plan to include the rock bolting through a technical revision, giving RMI more time to drum up the money to cover the full, multi-million dollar bond. 

The initial technical revision is due Jan. 15 but may go through several iterations, according to DRMS.. Once it is approved, RMI will have 60 days from the date of notice to pay the rest of the updated reclamation bond.

“The Citizens’ Alliance continues to support the state’s position to require rock bolting for slope stabilization. We hope to see a swift process to complete this technical revision to RMI’s state mining permit,” Jeff Peterson, president of the Glenwood Springs Citizens’ Alliance, said in a Dec. 1 news release regarding the revision. 

Rocky Mountain Industrials did not respond to the Post Independent’s request for comment.