Re: Silverton Northern Project Underway ...

The Sawpit ore tipple was one of our projects for the BLM about 12 years ago. This area from the river to the highway is federal property. We raised the ore bin up one one set of new bents that sit on new concrete footers. It originally sat higher but the pull and weight of the still extant cables limited what we could do. We also constructed a rather massive anchor for the cables that replaced the original wood constructed dead man. The BLM advised us that the ground under and surrounding the tipple is radioactive but it was ok to work there for short periods of time. There are no camping signs because of this contamination.

I see from Russ' pictures that the roof is in need of work. The stair on the outside of the structure goes half way so as to keep people from climbing up into the ore bin--people actually lived up there for a while back in the 1970s.

I could not verify from the evidence of the adjacent RGS r-o-w that this ever had a spur to it. The mining engineer who worked with us and knew some of the history of the nearby Primos radium processing facility thought that trucks were used to haul the ore from the tipple to the Primos facility. The BLM tore down a similar ore bin that was outside Placerville not too long before we started work on this one. This structure and the one torn down were products of the Telluride Iron Works in Durango.

We've had a preliminary inquiry fron San Miguel County to do some work on the RGS Trout Lake water tank for next year. The county was given ownership of the tank from the Trout Lake home owners association and the footers and other structural elements need replacement.