I did not have several email addresses for some of your members, but I responded to their letters objecting to the Amendment to the Gold Hill Mill Permit No. 1994-117 in writing. This correspondence is now part of the DRMS file regarding the proposed Amendment to the permit. Please forward these letters to your members, so that everyone is fully informed about plans involving the Gold Hill Mill. If any of your members care to have a meeting to discuss their concerns and how we propose to address their legitimate questions about our plans for operating the mill and the mines in the Gold Hill Mining District, please have them contact me so that this can be accomplished.

Thank you,   Mark A. Steen

                                          COLORADO MILLING COMPANY, LLC 

                                                               P.O. Box 1523

                                                       Longmont, Colorado 80502

Gold Hill Town Meeting                                                                                                             December 29, 2018

Tony Vrba, Chairwoman

<tonyvrba@nullgmail.com>

 Tony Vrba:

The Colorado Milling Company, LLC is herewith responding to the Gold Hill Town Meeting’s  letter regarding the Application for an Amendment to the Gold Hill Mill Limited Impact 110 (2) Permit No. M-1994-117, filed to add the previously permitted Left HandCreek Pump Station, Gold Hill Mill Pipeline, and the Times Mine adit portal to the affected land boundary of the Gold Hill Mill Permit.

In your email addressed to the Review Board, you posed several questions by writing: “As per your website and report there are many violations listed. Has there been any effort by the operators to make corrections? Is there a trend of fixing violations in a timely manner? The owner’s prior actions and reliability to make the area safe needs to be a consideration when further decisions are made.”

Since some of your members were not residents of Gold Hill when the Gold Hill Mill was permitted on September 26, 1985, the following history may be useful to those of your membership who want to know what has actually transpired at the property during the last thirty-three years.  

The Gold Hill Mill has only been owned and actually operated by four companies since it was constructed in 1986 and 1987. The first was the original permitted operator, the Gold Hill Ventures Limited Partnership; the second was a company called Colina Oro Molina; the third company was ITEC Environmental; and the fourth was Mount Royale Ventures. Of the four companies that owned and operated the milling facility, only one, Colina Oro Molina, was responsible for all of the operational violations at the Gold Hill Mill.

Colina Oro Molina was owned and controlled by Gwen Fraser of Seattle, Washington. She placed her brother, J. Wayne Tatman, in control of the Gold Hill Mill on October 23, 1990.The fact that Colina Oro Molina’s on-site Mill Superintendent was totally incapable of managing the Gold Hill Mill quickly became apparent to anyone in contact with J. Wayne Tatman. He had convinced his naïve and very gullible sister that he could make her tens of millions of dollars by processing just a few thousand tons of platinum, palladium and gold ore from a secret placer deposit he owned if he only had access to the Gold Hill Mill’s processing equipment. When this ridiculous geologic impossibility came to naught, the owners of the Cash Mine refused to ship any ore to the mill as long as J. Wayne Tatman was in control of the facility.

Shortly after this, Colina Oro Molina began importing ore from all over the place in clear violation of the original State and County Permits.Every seriousviolation at the Gold Hill Mill dates from Mr. Tatman’s appointment to a position that he proved entirely unsuited for to every observer except his devoted sister. In almost every instance, the undersigned  individual was responsible for alerting the Division of Reclamation, the Boulder County Land Use Department, and the Gold Hill Committee on Mining & the Environment of J. Wayne Tatman’s permit violations. This is readily discernable to anyone who looks through the correspondence on file with the Division of Reclamation regarding this permit. At no time did the owners of the mines in this district ever attempt to import ore from off-site. The only material that was ever brought to the mill from any site other than the Cash Mine was imported there by Colina Oro Molina. When J. Wayne Tatman finally departed the territory in 1997, the facility and permit were in complete disarray and his sister was considerably poorer if not much wiser.

The next permitted operator of the Gold Hill Mill was ITEC Environmental. This company spent a great deal of time and money addressing the problems created by the aforementioned J. Wayne Tatman. When the price of gold fell below this company’s breakeven price, they sold the Gold Hill Mill back to the original owners before they had processed any significant ore through the mill. There were no operational permit violations during the time when ITEC Environmental was in charge of the Gold Hill Mill.

Mount Royale Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of a Canadian public company, was the next permitted operator of the Gold Hill Mill. They were only processing at the Gold Hill Mill for approximately eighteen months during 2007 and 2008. Mismanagement and wasteful expenditures doomed this company to failure, but there were no serious permit violations discovered by the Division of Reclamation while this company was operating the Gold Hill Mill.

The Colorado Milling Company, LLC has been the permitted operator of the Gold Hill Mill since August 25, 2015 but has not yet begun processing ore in the facility. This company has, however, spent considerable effort and funds cleaning up after the previous operator of the Gold Hill Mill, Mount Royale Ventures. This should be easily discoverable to anyone who simply looks around the millsite.

The point of recounting all of this history is to inform and remind your members just who was actually responsible for all of the past problems you are revisiting in your letter. With regard to the other issues that were brought up at the Gold Hill Town Meeting’s Special Town Meeting the following answers may be helpful:

There are no rusty pipes on the Waterline Easement. All of the pipes that have ever been installed on the Gold Hill Mill Waterline are made of plastic. The original installation of this pipeline and the replacement and improvement of the Waterline were included when theGold Hill Mill was first permitted on September 26, 1985. The Waterline and Access Easement with Boulder County anticipated that the Left Hand Creek Pump Station, the Water Pipeline and the Times Mine Adit would be maintained, repaired and improved during the unlimited time period of the Easement. I would note that there has not been a single letter addressed or forwarded to anyone associated with any of the permitted operators of the Gold Hill Mill complaining of the condition of the pipes and claiming that they were polluting the land and were a hazard to wildlife and hikers. The Colorado Milling Company, LLC will be removing and replacing the old Waterline after it is granted an Amendment to the previously approved Gold Hill Mill Permit.   

Concern about noise from generators or pumping stations to move water. There are only two means of providing power to the Left Hand Creek Pump Station. One is though the installation of electricity to power the pump. This requires the installation of a pole and a powerline to bring electricity to the water pump. This can not be accomplished without an easement being granted by the owners of the Mammoth Millsite. The second method of providing power to the Pump Station is through the generation of electricity on site. The generator that will be employed to supply electricity to the pump will be housed in an insulated metal conex and will be muffled to reduce the noise of its operation.

All of the water quality issues were previously addressed when the Gold Hill Mill was originally permitted in the answers to public comments, the review by the Gold Hill Committee on Mining & the Environment, and public meetings that were held in the months between when the permit was applied for and when it was issued. There are many pages of comments and reports that are available on the DRMS website regarding this matter.

Contamination of water in case of flood. This has been addressed by moving the Pump House and fuel storage for the generator well above the Left Hand Creek floodplain and floodway. The Colorado Milling Company, LLC will be compliance with all of the applicable Rules and Regulations that apply to the Gold Hill Mill Waterline before anything is installed along the length of the Water Pipeline Easement Deed.

The Colorado Milling Company, LLC has expended a considerable amount of funds and effort in restoring the Gold Hill Mill to its original condition inside the building and making the property presentable. It is also following the original, approved plan for obtaining a legal source of process water for milling operations. Incidentally, access to the water that is stored in the Times Mine has now been restored, and this considerable volume of water was offered to the Volunteer Fire Department months ago. It is something of a mystery why access to all this water has not been followed up by anyone in the town of Gold Hill. The Colorado Milling Company, LLC’s representatives are prepared to meet and discuss their plans with any of your members willing to make constructive suggestions about improving our Gold Hill Mill Waterline and future mining and milling operations.

Sincerely,

Mark A. Steen

Colorado Milling Company, LLC

On Jan 5, 2019, at 10:17 AM, MARK STEEN <goldhillbooks@nullyahoo.com> wrote:

Please post all of them. The people who live in Gold Hill need to be fully informed of what the owners of the mines and the mill are actually accomplishing with the restoration of the Gold Hill Mill Waterline.

I can only post what you sent to GHTMeeting. The others are personal.

Tony Vrba