The historical Idaho and May Day mines are now seeing action after a long time. Reclamation work at the gold and silver mines located in South West Colorado is being conducted by Wildcat Mining Corp. The company received a permit to undertake clean up work from the Colorado Mines Land Reclamation Board last year.
The Wildcat Mining Corp is a subsidiary of Varca Ventures from Florida. The reclamation works permit is the first that the board has issued in 28 years. The permit has many conditions that need to be met before the actual mining work can recommence at the mines.
This includes initial geotechnical drilling activities to support road, portal, pond and drainage design, and construction work plans; installing groundwater monitoring wells; and removing stockpiled rock and un-milled ore so it can install an augmentation pond required by the Division of Water Resources.
Randall Oser, Varca Ventures President said that they were very pleased to now be taking steps to collect the necessary field data to fulfill the conditions attached to the permit and eventually bring these mines back into production. He added that it came with a responsibility to the Durango community, to the board members who voted unanimously, and to their shareholders. In addition, they were all incredibly gratified to know that this permit marked the first gold mine permit of its nature granted by the state since 1984.