My wife and I ride ATV's up by Red Feather Lakes, CO. We were up the first week of August and stopped in to eat lunch by an old mine. We noticed that someone had taken a cutting torch and cut the big metal door off of the mine shaft, leaving it wide open for anyone to wander in. A ton of kids ride up there and it was very dangerous.
So I stop in the US Forest Service District Office in Fort Collins to report it. The referred me to the Abandoned Mine Lands Program Manager in Boulder and we contact by e-mail. I gave him a full description of how to find the mine, and pictures. he said they would look into how they could safeguard the mine. I told him all they needed to do was go up and weld the door back on, asap before someone dies in there.
I never heard back so assumed they closed off the mine. We went riding again mid October, two months later, only to find the mine door still wide open. It pissed me off because I thought public safety would be their primary mission. So I e-mailed back to see why NOTHING had been done.
Here is the response I just received:
Thank you for the follow up on this site. I am working on getting funding for materials and to hire a contractor to install a closure. I have created a new abandoned mine safety closure project for Larimer County. It seems that the vandalism in the Red Feather Lakes/Rustic area is an ongoing problem. We are considering installing a bulkhead closure with slots for bats. This may be more resistant to vandalism than the grate type of closure that can be cut with a Sawsall or acetylene cutting torches.
:( You just can't make this type of stuff up. We're here from the Government to help you..... Very disappointed to say the least. They better hope a tragedy does not happen up there.
You can’t just run up and weld it shut, what if someone is already inside? Besides, if someone goes in... that’s their fault. It’s the wilderness, not Disneyland
Yeah, but at least the fancy new door will have slots so the bats can squeeze in and out!
Anytime the Forest Service is staying in their offices and not burning down the woods, blocking trail access, or instituting “fee areas” is good.
That is government bureaucracy for you.
Now if you had reported someone filling in a bit of swampy land on their property the Army Corp of Engineers and the EPA would be there tomorrow with a Cease and Desist Order and a be ready to fine that person $50K a day until the swamp was restored.
A somewhat related story: A lady I know rented some space in a strip mall. She wanted to set up a small bakery there. Rookie mistake, as she hadn’t thought about getting the necessary permits.
Fast forward one year. She paid all that rent, and still didn’t have all the permits due to local government inaction. So rather than renew her lease, she gave up her dream.
I dunno. Maybe things would have gone better if she had included a one hundred dollar bill with each permit application.
Hi, Im from the Gub mint and I’m here to help?
Yeah right,
“A ton of kids ride up there and it was very dangerous. “
Kid in the wilderness unsupervised?
One could write a book on government ineptness. My favorite:
Half Moon Bay California. A developer had a large tract of land he wanted to develop and was in the permitting process. A recent highway project, which he had nothing to do with, had sealed off a culvert. Rain water was now not able to drain to the sea. Time passed, more rain, more water, now reeds and such. The permit was denied, as he was now encroaching on a “wetlands”. Law suit followed, which he finally won. All this took about 5-6 years, IIRC.
I spend recreational time in the Plumas National Forest on my ATV. The entire area is pocked with old abandoned gold rush mines. I fine all the stuff that is left behind interesting and if I can find the trash dump it is a trove of interesting stuff that gives a idea of how the people lived. In the last few years many of the mine shaft/tunnel openings have been closed by large steel grates with large opening slats in them. You can still shine a light into the mine but can not go in. (Maybe the slats are for the bats.)
I actually appreciate the Forest Service approach to preserving these mines rather than just dropping a couple sticks of dynamite into the entrances. There was a time when the FS approach to many of these sites was to “return them to nature” by destroying what was there. I am happy that they seem to have changed that policy.
I remember of a kid riding a mountain motor bike forty five years ago, who jumped rock only to find a straight down mine shaft on the other side of it. It did not end well for him.
A working companion was bouncing around in the hills of New Mexico when he also jumped a rock, and ended up in an irrigation canal.
It pays to look before you leap.
“I’m from the government and here to help” - the most terrifying phrase in the English language.
Tell him there was a bunch of 223 ammo boxes and shiny brass in the area. And some Taco Bell trash. Yeah.
The Forest Service has been that way for at least 50 years. Everything has to be specifically budgeted. Also, don’t dare to take matters into your own hands and do something to correct the situation.
Wonder how many manhours were spent in meetings to arrive at this outcome?
Vs.two guys tossing a portable welding outfit on an ATV and being done before lunch?
Forest Service is federal. I would never ask them to do diddly. But most western states have Divisions of Reclamation, Mining and Safety.
Much of what these state offices do is render mines safe. In AZ, for vertical shafts, they pour boulders and rubble down them.
And yes, abandoned mines are incredibly dangerous, as is the land around them. Even professional miners will only enter them very gingerly, while equipped with breathing equipment and safety gear. With friends outside if things go south.
Open mines all over the desert in AZ.
I bet if you’d mentioned the possibility of bats being harmed, they’d get someone up there ASAP to protect the bats
Burro-crazy burrocrats seem to find a way to make things happen to protect wildlife, but humans? Not so quickly
I am a caver as my handle suggests. I live in Indiana where we have hundreds of old mines on state and federal property. The mines are “gated” so as to allow bats entry and exit that might live there. I have personally worked on close to 25 gates to “close” old mines. The mines “might” be home to federally protected and rare bats. You can’t just go in and seal up a mine because some biologists might file suit against state, federal and private persons involved in gating the mines. As one poster stated, there has to be funds allocated to install a gate. We put the same gates on caves that allow bats entry/exit.
You understand that this was government code for "Go F*** yourself, and don't bother me again"...