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The U.S Forest Service has approved a land swap deal that will permanently block hard-rock mining on thousands of acres above the town of Crested Butte, Colorado. Locals refer to the pink-hued Mount Emmons as the "Red Lady" and fought nearly fifty years against a proposed molybdenum mine in the peak's watershed.
Chad Stewart, the supervisor of the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests wrote in his decision, “I am convinced that this land exchange is in the public interest.” The land swap calls for the Forest Service to take over management of 625 acres of undeveloped parcels and inholdings across four ranches, as well as wetlands inside the 15,000-acre Whetstone Roadless Area in Gunnison County, and habitat for the federally threatened Gunnison sage-grouse in Saguache County, including along sections of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail and Colorado Trail.
“The underlying analyses by the federal government supporting the recent Red Lady decisions are unique in that they clearly articulate that the economic importance of tourism and biodiversity supported by our natural ecosystems outweighs the value of mining,” Crested Butte Mayor Ian Billick said in a statement.
The Mount Emmons Mining Company will get 539 acres on three federally managed parcels that includes the company’s water treatment plant, tailings storage, and retention ponds. The agreement stipulates that the company must place conservation easements and surrender mineral rights on all the land it owns, essentially creating two levels of protection to prevent future mining. Adding conservation easements prevents any residential or commercial development on the mine-owned land, while allowing non-motorized recreation.
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Western water policy treats rivers as a sum of parts and not a living entity of interconnected processes. Temperature, flow, nutrient cycles—all are connected.”
