A troubled gold mine in La Plata Canyon is getting another chance to clean up its messes before it loses its permit.
Wildcat Mining Corp. has until Jan. 31 to put $100,000 in escrow to pay for long-overdue fixes to an illegal road the company’s former owner built.
“They say they have all the contracts to do the work, but it hasn’t been done for the last two summers,” said Loretta Pineda, director of the state Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety.
The $100,000 will ensure Wildcat has the funds to pay to reclaim the road, Pineda said.
The state mining board in November voted to suspend Wildcat’s permit and took steps to revoke it this month. But at the board’s meeting Wednesday, Pineda told board members that her inspectors are working with Wildcat on the escrow plan, so the board delayed a decision on Wildcat’s fate until its next meeting, Feb. 19.
If the company does not come through and fix the road, the state is working on plans to make sure it gets repaired this summer.
“Somebody is going to do it,” Pineda said in an interview.
The illegal road cuts steeply down the banks of the La Plata River at the hamlet of Mayday. It was the first in a litany of violations Wildcat committed under previous management, including drilling new portals without a permit. The portals later collapsed.
