Our beautiful area in the Southwest is graced with an abundance of public lands – places that are part of our culture and ingrained in the identity of the region. These spaces provide opportunities for everyone to recreate, work, decompress, and connect, whether you're a local or a visitor from across the world. Communities with so much at stake should help ensure these lands are managed in a way that keeps them available to future generations, intact and unspoiled.
In our own backyard, the La Plata Mountains are under threat from mining exploration. Metallic Minerals, a Canadian-based prospecting company, has been exploring roughly 19 square miles of mining claims in the La Platas since 2019. They have drilled thousands of feet of core holes in the Bedrock Creek drainage, defining a porphyry copper deposit – a large, low-grade ore body – that also contains silver, gold, and platinum group elements. Their goal is to define a resource that could be sold to a larger mining company, such as their major investor Newmont Corporation. Metallic Minerals has plans for more extensive drilling this summer in the Bedrock Creek drainage and in Rush Basin. While they claim they would mine responsibly, it would ultimately be the mining company that would determine how it is done.
For those of us who live here, the risks are many and the benefits minimal – unless you plan to work for a prospecting or mining company. The interests and livelihoods of other public land users must be considered, including regenerative uses such as grazing and timber harvesting. Prospecting alone introduces risks to water and wildlife, increases pressure on infrastructure, and degrades the quality of outdoor experience.
These risks multiply dramatically with full-scale mining. Extracting a porphyry deposit means removing millions of tons of rock. The proposed method, called block caving, is an underground technique that eventually causes subsidence – a gradual collapse of the ground above – leaving the landscape devastated. Dewatering the mining structure would likely dry up local creeks and springs.
Industrial traffic would surge on rural roads that lead to the mining claims, including Echo Basin Road (MC44), La Plata Canyon Road (CR124), US160, and connecting side roads. Significant energy consumption, noise, and disruption would follow. These effects would change the rural character of the area for decades, if not forever. The benefits, by contrast, flow mostly outward: minerals for national and global markets, profits for company investors and employees, and only modest, uncertain economic gains for the local community. Profit is the ultimate driver of the La Plata Project.
Today our public lands face pressure from all sides – from efforts to transfer them to private hands, to attempts to reduce or eliminate environmental review and protections. The agencies tasked with managing these lands cannot be counted on to protect them – not today, not for future generations. The public voice is being diminished by shortened, optional, or eliminated comment periods. Now more than ever, we must stand up for what is precious to our community – and act.
State and local governments play essential roles in this fight. This is why the La Plata Mountains and Public Lands Coalition was formed – and continues to grow. Southwestern Colorado residents, including local tribes, love and depend on the La Platas. Let's work together to oppose the La Plata Project and protect the public lands we love.
Metallic Minerals is hosting four open houses – all are welcome to share concerns and questions: March 31, 6–8 pm at Breen Community Building; April 1, 6–8 pm at Durango Community Recreation Center; April 2, 5–7 pm at Cortez Recreation Center; April 3, 6–8 pm at Mancos Community Center.
For more information, visit laplatamininginfo.com to join the coalition, find public comment opportunities, events, and agency contacts. Additional information is available at laplataproject.com and metallic-minerals.com.
Tom Miller is a retired electrical engineer who has owned property in La Plata Canyon since 1998, where he currently lives with his wife. He keeps busy designing a novel Telemark ski binding and as a member of the La Plata Mountains and Public Lands Coalition.
