062 Aimee Tooker, Community Leader in Western Colorado

Aimee Tooker (00:00)

So we don’t want to replace any of those coal jobs with the recreation jobs. know, those recreation jobs can fill in the holes and be able to be used, you know, for the wives and kids of the miners, you know, things like that to offset that. We want a year round stable economy. And so to get that those good paying jobs and get those taxes back into the property, you know, tax districts, we need those mining jobs.  

Recreation jobs are only going to bring in sales tax and lodging tax, and that’s not what we need. We have got to get the fire department, the cemetery district, the school district back up to par. And the way that we’re going to do that is with people living here, the property taxes.

Mark Hinaman (01:51)

Okay. Welcome to another episode of the fire to vision podcast, where we talk about energy dense fuels and how they can better human lives. And we have with us today, Amy Tucker, a community leader in nuclear Colorado. Hey Amy, how you doing?

Aimee Tooker (02:05)

I’m doing great, thank you.

Mark Hinaman (02:07)

Yeah, very excited to talk to you today, fellow Coloradan. Were you born in Colorado? Were you from there originally?

Aimee Tooker (02:17)

was from here originally, born in Colorado, raised until the local uranium mill and the mines closed and then we had to move to Southern California and we were there till my sophomore year of high school. We were able to finally come back. Yeah.

Mark Hinaman (02:32)

Yeah.

Okay, so yeah, you’ve got a long history of being in Colorado and in uranium mining and that’s that’s how we found you through kind of this issue of mining and some controversy that is happening in I’ll say Colorado and the mining industry and It’s really really excited to chat about this. I’ve done personally very little research. So bear with me Literally just before we were chatting, you know, I was bruising some some websites about the topic and

seeing what other people are saying. So, but I’m excited to chat with you about it and get your perspective of what’s happening on the ground. Being a little cryptic here, because I want to learn a little bit about a little bit more about you and your background first, before we launch into what we had designed to talk about. So you grew up in Colorado and then Southern California and then moved back to Colorado, but what have you done since then?

Aimee Tooker (03:26)

Aha!

Since then, got a little rebellious after high school and left and got married and pregnant and divorced and then came back home. My husband and I met in 2002 and we’ve been together ever since. We’ve got three kids together, a 13 year old girl, eight year old boy and a five year old girl. And we’ve got

two Main Street businesses and then another business that’s off Main Street. So we own and manage three Main Street, basically three Main Street businesses right now. And we’re just making our home here.

Mark Hinaman (04:16)

Amy, give us little bit of perspective about Nuclea. How big is Nuclea Colorado? I imagine most people have never heard of this place.

Aimee Tooker (04:25)

Probably not. So we’re about two hours from any stoplight. We’re very remote. We’re in the west end of Montrose County, a very small community. There’s about, there’s two municipalities pretty close to us, but all in all, there’s about 1500 people total in New Glenn, Adderita, Bedrock, Paradox, Redville. So very small town, very close knit community.

Mark Hinaman (04:51)

Yeah. And what was the economy of the town, I guess, historically?

Aimee Tooker (04:59)

Historically, agriculture. We’ve got the San Miguel River, the town of Nucla here in Tabawatch Park have senior water rights out of the river. so agriculture is continues to be a huge part of our economy. Of course, historically, you know, the the mining industry came in. This is actually where Madame Curie got her radium samples for her scientific experiments. Vanadium was very huge. And then

During World War II, was uranium, and the uranium for the Manhattan Project was mined in these hills. so agriculture and mining and ranching are definitely a huge part of our history and hopefully our future.

Mark Hinaman (05:46)

Yeah. Give us a little bit of perspective about that part of the world. I mean, I think it’s beautiful. But, you know, I think a lot of people might think of, when I think of the World War II mining effort in the Vanadium Belt, it’s Northeastern Arizona, Northwestern New Mexico, like the Four Corners area, right? And it’s similar to that area, right? So just paint the picture of what it looks like for folks. I mean, it’s dry, desert.

Aimee Tooker (06:05)

Yeah.

it is. It’s dry desert. It’s, you know, like high desert, know, cedar trees. But we can just go right up the road and be up on the Oncapagri Plateau, which is, you know, 9000 feet. And so, you know, we can go from one extreme to another. It’s it’s beautiful. It’s called Tabawatch Park and Tabawatch means sunny side of the hill or the place where the snow melts first. The you Indians named it that.

So we have a climate that’s perfect for agriculture and that’s just been, you know, what a lot of people have done ranching in agriculture since 1894 here in the area. So it’s beautiful and where, you know, other places only get to have a, you know, one cut of hay, we get to have four cuts of hay. You know, if you’re a farmer and rancher, you know what that means.

But we’re very blessed to live. It’s definitely a utopia for us. And that’s why we are fiercely protective of it.

Mark Hinaman (07:15)

Yeah. but it’s quite small, right? Hardly any people are there. It’s like really, yeah. there, there was a coal fire power or coal mine there, right? Both coal mine and coal power plant. Talk to us a little bit about that, the history of that.

Aimee Tooker (07:19)

Yeah, no. We like it.

Both. Yes. Yep.

Okay, so that was a huge economic driver in our community. Very big employer for a lot of people here. The coal mine, which that’s where my dad worked. That’s where when we came back from California, he got a job with the coal mine. And so we were really able to have that good paying job. So tri -state generation transmission on the mine and the coal plant. And in 2016, they came in and said,

We’re done. We’re gonna close up shop and you know, good luck. We’ll do what we can to help you. Kind of. So in 2018, the coal mine closed down. They were done and just did a little reclamation work. And then 2019, the coal plant closed down. And that was two years ahead of schedule. It was supposed to be 2022. So that was a hard hit for our economy.

Those are about 130 excellent paying jobs. Those people donated throughout the community. Our nonprofits took a huge hit. Our tax districts, our cemetery and fire district took a 65 % tax loss. That was really huge for our area and the employees definitely donated to the nonprofits. And so it was a struggle after that and it still continues to be a struggle.

We’ve been working on diversifying our economy since least 2014 when West End Economic Development Corporation started. And then we’ve been working on our coal transition plans. And so we’ve worked on those for quite a long time and it’s been a community led effort. And so, you we want to be able to see those processes through. We are down to about a 40 % property tax loss now.

which is really, really good compared to 65%. So we’re really coming along, but we’ve done things through our community that have been community led. so continuing those processes and seeing those organically grow is what we wanna do.

Mark Hinaman (09:46)

Gotcha. Yeah, that’s, mean, it’s, it’s a really tough, story in my opinion, like there’s this community that’s generating power and is producing power for the state and for the people. then, yeah, the state of Colorado came in and said, thanks, but we were closing all the coal plants and you can’t do this anymore. Right. And everyone in, I guess it was anyone in the community supportive of the coal plant closing.

Aimee Tooker (10:15)

No, no.

Mark Hinaman (10:15)

That’s kind of a rhetorical question or obvious question.

Aimee Tooker (10:19)

Yeah, it was extremely emotional time for this community because they were such a big part of it. know, everybody in the back of their mind, you know, with the political, you know, current events and things like that, we kind of knew that something like that was going to be coming. We were actually the cleanest burning coal power plant in the United States.

And so we couldn’t even make those emission standards. So that’s how, you know, we were like, why, why, you know, is this really necessary? We need this base load. You know, we can’t depend on, you know, solar and wind and, you know, we have to have this base load. And it was definitely an emotional toll for the community because they had such a huge impact here.

Mark Hinaman (11:08)

Yeah. I, just drove past a coal plant in Turkey, believe it or not, where I am right now looking at it. was like, man, they’re doing it differently. I could tell, right? I’ve, I’ve worked at a coal mine. I’ve worked, taking coal coal from on the train to the power plant. I visited a bunch of power plants, like, and I could tell their mission standards are not the same as what’s what they are in America. Right. Like was, was the air, I mean, cleanest burning. Did you notice a

Aimee Tooker (11:18)

Thank

Mark Hinaman (11:38)

I guess improvement in air quality once the plant closed or was it basically identical to what it was like before?

Aimee Tooker (11:46)

It was identical to what it was before. You didn’t even know unless it was, you know, one of those cold days that you could see the, you know, see the smoke, you have the steam coming out, you know, you just, you just couldn’t tell. But one of the things that they said when Tri -State was sued by Wild Earth Guardians and the National Park Conservation Service is the Hays Act and the Clean Air Act. And so they said, well that,

Mark Hinaman (11:55)

Just the steam. Yeah.

Aimee Tooker (12:16)

steam is drifting over to the national parks. There’s no national parks in the area and the wind doesn’t generally blow, you know, towards Utah. It blows away from Utah. You know, it comes out of the southwest and blows, you know, northeast. And so it was like, no, that’s not the way the wind blows. And so, you know, it was just more of a environmental push by extreme organizations.

and the political climate at the time.

Mark Hinaman (12:48)

Yeah. So that’s really tough. I mean, you’ve got one business that yeah, like is doing the service for the world and then closes against their will, loses half of the economy, essentially for over half of the economy for the area. I mean, what, what’s been the community’s plan or, vision for the future? How have you guys tried to remedy this?

Aimee Tooker (13:13)

Using our assets, using that low hanging fruit, value added agriculture, that’s really huge here. Our meat processing, we’ve been working on a meat processing facility, so they were working on the business plan now, so our producers don’t have to go two hours away to take their livestock to be processed. We’ve very carefully and very methodically planned out our recreation industry.

We’ve got trails that have been locally designed, locally developed with the Bureau of Land Management. We’ve got the Rim Rocker Trail that Montrose County has put in place for us and has marketed for us. We’ve done all of these things, you know, with locally led efforts, you know, what we want to see for the future of our community. And so when there’s a group of individuals that come in and say, well, we don’t like

what your plan is and we want to change it. And you know what? We want a national monument and we’re going to direct your economy and we’re going to lock up any future mining capabilities that you want to do. That’s very disturbing. We’ve been working on it. We know what our assets are and the Eurovan Mineral Belt is one of our huge assets and we want to be able to explore and to mine.

We’ve got uranium, we’ve got vanadium, we’ve got copper, we’ve got boride, floresper, we’ve got some lithium salt. The Paradox Basin is, the Dolores River is really salty and we have a treaty with Mexico where we have to take salt out of the river before it hits the Colorado River. And so using that salt for something, it’s ongoing, but it’s definitely about 20 % lower now.

So they’re working on that. I mean, we have all of these assets that we want to use, but for somebody to come in and say, no, we don’t like that idea that does don’t even live here. You know, that’s not OK with us.

Mark Hinaman (15:23)

Yeah. So like you said, you’ve got assets in the area and you listed agriculture, recreation, and mining, right? And that’s, and those three kind of buckets, it was there, was there another that I missed or, agriculture, and, and, yeah, right. Okay. And so you mentioned it, I guess the mining piece, right? That’s.

Aimee Tooker (15:42)

Yeah, just the value added ag. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Hinaman (15:52)

It’d be uranium, vanadium, and then you listed a bunch of minerals, copper, barite, lithium. And these are things that are needed for the energy transition.

Aimee Tooker (16:01)

We don’t have lithium. We’ve got lithium salt in the Paradox Basin. Yeah. Those are, you know, we have quite a few critical minerals. You know, Department of Energy and Department of Defense have these lists of critical minerals and we have quite a few of them. And so, you know, we’ve got a very supportive community of the mining industry. And so I think that we can balance the mining with the recreation, with the agriculture.

And we can do that. We can balance that. And we can locally lead that balance.

Mark Hinaman (16:37)

Yeah. I mean, do you know the percentage of value breakdown between those areas? In my mind, I’m always biased and my career and background is from resource extraction and the value that that creates for the world. It’s like a net positive. It’s not a trade. It’s you’re creating something new and you’re making value out of rocks. I think it’s really cool. But do you know how that value breakdown

would look recreation versus mining how much money mining would bring in versus recreation I don’t know

Aimee Tooker (17:13)

a lot more money versus recreation. You know, that’s the thing is these, the coal jobs, the coal mine and the coal plant jobs were good paying jobs that had benefits and retirements. You know, where the recreation industry is, those are service industry jobs. Those are, you know, housekeepers and waiters and waitresses. to offset those, pardon?

Mark Hinaman (17:32)

tour guides working for tips. Tour guides working for tips. Nothing against tour guides. I wish I could be a tour guide, but it’s not my primary skill set.

Aimee Tooker (17:37)

Yeah, exactly.

would be so fun, but as long as you don’t need the benefits and the insurance. If you’ve got kids, that’s a huge thing. But this is a community that wants to work. This is a community of miners. It really is. Generational miners. The uranium miners are definitely dying off. They’re an older breed, but their kids and grandkids are here and they grew up around it.

and they grew up with the stories. so this is a very willing community. So we don’t want to replace any of those coal jobs with the recreation jobs. know, those recreation jobs can fill in the holes and be able to be used, you know, for the wives and kids of the miners, you know, things like that to offset that. We want a year round stable economy. And so to get that those good paying jobs and get those

taxes back into the property, you know, tax districts, we need those mining jobs. Recreation jobs are only going to bring in sales tax and lodging tax, and that’s not what we need. We have got to get the fire department, the cemetery district, the school district back up to par. And the way that we’re going to do that is with people living here, the property taxes.

Mark Hinaman (19:06)

Yeah. I guess I hadn’t even thought of that. Yeah. Seasonal jobs in the tourism industry or recreational industry, especially for Western Colorado, people may not realize this, but it gets pretty cold, right? Like it’s not really a winter sport. mean, people are like, you’re skiing in Colorado, right? And it’s like, yes, where the ski resorts are, but there’s not a lot of hills and areas to put ski resorts in this area, right? And I mean, you’re not going to be ice skating or ice fishing on the river, right? And so you’ve got these…

Aimee Tooker (19:20)

Bye.

Mark Hinaman (19:34)

huge dry desolate canyons that basically have no economic value in the winter. And people can come and take great winter photography, but that’s not going to pay your health insurance. So, but you can mine your own, right?

Aimee Tooker (19:46)

Exactly, exactly. And if it’s dry, can be up there mining, you know, things like that. If it’s dry, you know, which we do, we have really mild winters. So, I mean, my husband and I take our kids out in January and February and we go out hiking, you know, around here. You know, it’s just beautiful and there’s no bugs and, you know, it’s, you know, it’s dry. And so we can really walk around and not be, you know, bothered by mosquitoes and gnats and, you know.

snakes so it’s you know it’s an awesome time of year to go out hiking but you know but people don’t visit here at that time of year you know they wait till the river’s flowing or you know when it really starts to warm up you know april may when the mountain is open you know the rim rocker trail is closed until the mountain’s open and as soon as the mountain’s open it’s like hooray the mountain’s open you know people get to come in and we get to drive over the mountain to go grocery shopping and

But to have those mines going over here would be hugely beneficial to the area and not to the area, just the nation as a whole. This is the Yervan mineral belt. This is one of the only places in the United States where uranium and vanadium are found in the same ore. And there’s actually more vanadium than uranium. It’s six to one and in some places a 10 to one ratio. And so vanadium is one of those critical minerals.

that the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense need. And we have a remote and supportive community. So let us do it. Let us help our nation. Once again, we did it before and we are happy to do it again.

Mark Hinaman (21:28)

Yeah, yeah, the there’s been so much news and push for domestically sourced minerals, but there’s such a push and pull in society that people talk about all the time, but they don’t they don’t want it. They don’t recognize that. Wow, that that’s actually mining. It’s going to take a lot of moving of dirt or other materials to collect these resources. How how do people reconcile that idea? Is it just education? Is it just

hearing more about it, understanding where it comes from. I don’t know, because otherwise it’s going to be mined in Australia and minerals processed in China or mined in China, right? then we’ll just import those materials, which doesn’t… It feels very hypocritical to me to not manufacture or at least be willing to resource all the necessary minerals that you need at home to build all the stuff that you want.

Aimee Tooker (22:23)

Well, and it’s the regulations. You know, we have the worker and environmental regulations here in the United States. You know, what are they doing in China? You know, we don’t know. I wouldn’t even begin to want to know how that they are sourcing those materials over there. But I know that we can do it better here. I know that we have the regulations. I know that we have responsible mining companies here that want to follow the rules, that want to be able to do it here.

You know, we have the reclamation issues, the reclamation regulations, and so we’re going to be leaving the land better than it was to begin with. You know, so we have all of these, you 21st century mining regulations, know, state, local, federal, that will have to be followed. So I think we can do it better than any place in the world. I really do.

Mark Hinaman (23:18)

Yeah. Yeah. That’s that brings me a lot of hope. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because when people think of uranium mining, right, I was recommended a couple of books as a counter argument once for, well, we can’t do nuclear because we have to mine uranium. And it killed a bunch of Navajo Native Americans and gave them cancer back back in the 50s. And I’m like that.

that those mining techniques were very different, Like there wasn’t, then I guess can you speak to that at all about how they are different or it’s okay if you can’t.

Aimee Tooker (23:54)

It wasn’t just the mining regulations. Yeah, that was the government. That was the rules back then. You could just leave a hole in the ground. And the regulations are way different now than they were back then. But not only that, it was a lifestyle. It wasn’t healthy eating. They smoked cigarettes, rolled cigarettes with no filter. My grandparents and my great grandparents were those people.

so yeah, they went down into the mines. What’s that?

Mark Hinaman (24:24)

The Europeans still are, the way. So the Europeans still are. They’re still rolling their cigarettes.

Aimee Tooker (24:30)

Yeah, it was a very different time, a very different lifestyle. My grandpa, he smoked cigarettes and drank. A lot of business transactions were done at the local bar. When I was born, he quit drinking and quit smoking, but still he had the effects of that. But if you’re smoking a cigarette down in the mine and there’s hardly any ventilation, that’s going to affect you.

My husband’s grandfather actually worked in the mill. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, and that man was healthy as a horse until the day he died. You know, it just was a lifestyle. And so those things have to be taken into consideration. It wasn’t just the uranium, you know, and people living on top of mill tellings. You know, that was an issue, but it was the lifestyle back then.

and it was the regulations back then that made it dangerous.

Mark Hinaman (25:32)

Do know if a lot of the proposed, so I guess upfront, there’s a lot of mining claims in the area, right? Meaning people want to come in and mine materials for this uranium, for the copper, for et cetera. But are there any active mines in the area? Yep.

Aimee Tooker (25:51)

There is there is it’s called the Sunday mine they employ about 30 to 40 locals You know awesome company I’ve known them since high school the owners of the company So it’s it’s amazing when people come into the stores there They’re so grateful so grateful to have such a good paying job so close to home You know it really is a blessing and right now. They’re stockpiling until we can Get some sort of an agreement

to take those to a mill to process.

Mark Hinaman (26:24)

And are they mining uranium there?

Aimee Tooker (26:27)

Yeah, uranium and vanadium.

Mark Hinaman (26:29)

Okay, okay. And is a lot of the mining, so that’s one operating mine, but there’s a bunch more mining claims.

Aimee Tooker (26:38)

There’s mining claims and then there’s quite a bit of exploration going on right now. You know, so the exploration technologies have changed for the last 50 years. So we do have Australian companies and Canadian companies coming in and doing some exploration activities. A lot of people around here have been going out and staking claims. So there’s a lot of active, you know, filed under review claims.

I could go in all day long about valid and existing in that term and how it’s not what it seems. But yeah.

Mark Hinaman (27:13)

Okay. yeah, I mean, let’s talk about it a little bit. What does that mean, right? Because that is, think, term that perhaps some anti -mining people might be using. Yeah.

Aimee Tooker (27:24)

Yes, they do. They do. That’s the thing with the monument proponents is, all valid and existing will be fine. Okay, but you know, you’ve got to, these companies have to reprove their claim. So they have to explore again to reprove, you know, the documentation that they had back in the fifties. So they have to do that. They have to make it a study where it’s economically viable.

to operate the mine there. And you have to have road and infrastructure to go into those mine sites. And so if we’re not able to upgrade any of the roads or the infrastructure, then I mean, they can just totally cross out that valid and existing very, very easily. So very few valid and existing claims would even be in existence. And they would be regulated out, essentially getting rid of mining, which is their ultimate goal.

Mark Hinaman (28:23)

Can you give me some perspective on how long it takes to go from a mining claim to having an operating mine? And what kind of sum of that’s going to happen? Yeah, years, right?

Aimee Tooker (28:30)

years and permits and money. You have to have lots of money upfront in order to go through all those processes. The permits are expensive and they keep getting larger and larger every year. The reclamation fees this year, they went up, golly, 300 % for some people. And so it’s like…

It’s hard for a small mining company to be able to do that. You have to be a really big, established mining company. yeah, just to prove that you have an economically viable operation is exponential.

Mark Hinaman (29:11)

Yeah, then it’s lot of chicken and the egg, right? Like you have to build the road to the mine, but you can’t build the road to the mine until you know that there’s a resource there and you have to have investment. so it’s a big gamble for some of these companies, right? That they’re risking a lot of capital to go out and actually have a successful business model, right?

Aimee Tooker (29:25)

Yep.

Yep. Yes. Exactly.

Mark Hinaman (29:34)

and I mean, yeah, okay. There’s great paying jobs and there’s a lot of value in these resources, but like these companies, there’s not infinite money, right? It is finite and it’s not like you can just spend all the money in the world to appease every, every single person.

Okay, so the Dolores monument project or proposal that you had mentioned this briefly and we alluded to it a couple of times, but can you give us an overview of what it is and what it means for this community?

I know you could, that’s a good question, right? You could spend a lot of time just talking about that, but I’ve tried to set us up so that, you know, we’ve got a little bit background perspective, but yeah, let’s talk.

Aimee Tooker (30:13)

Why you bleed?

So these environmental organizations, there’s a coalition of them called Protect the Dolores River Coalition and it’s made up of different environmental groups and they have different strategic goals in mind. Some of them are anti -mining, some of them want water in the river so they can raft, some of them want to get rid of McPhee Dam, which is a dam down by Dolores.

And some of them are anti -human on the land. So getting rid of people off of land altogether. So they represent quite a few diverse groups of extreme environmental organizations. And they’ve been working on this national monument for quite a while, unbeknownst to this community. We only found out about this proposal last August. And

It was only by chance that we found out about it. Otherwise they would have avoided our community altogether because they know what kind of a community we are. We’re fiercely independent. You know, we, we are full of minors, you know, and they knew that they just needed to avoid us altogether. Instead of coming up to us first, you know, for our input and, you know, stakeholder engagement, they tried to avoid us and it was only by chance that we found out about this proposal.

And so we met with the proponents back in September and we thought, you know, we did, you know, it’s a whole technique. It’s called the Delphi technique. they felt like, we felt like we were going to be included in the creation of the map. You know, we hadn’t seen a map yet. So we thought, we thought it was a very benign thing. And then as the winter rolled on,

You know, we had questions and we had concerns, you know, how does this affect our mining? How does this affect our grazing? You know, is it going to affect our water rights? You know, what is it? And they avoided us all winter long. You know, they were stalling is basically what they were doing. They were stalling us. And so in January, I finally got annoyed, you know, annoying enough, I guess, to one of the proponents. And he sent me a map and the support book that they had already gathered. And once I saw the map, I thought,

Okay, this process is farther along than we thought and it’s clearly an anti -mining campaign because the map is almost 400 ,000 acres and covers our entire Uravan mineral belt. know, they say they want to protect the Dolores River. Well, they go completely off of the Dolores River, you know, 400 ,000 acres.

all nine national monuments in the state of Colorado would fit into this footprint of this proposed national monument. And so in February is really when the opposition blew up. I got that map on January 23rd and February 18th. It blew up. The communities here found out about it. The community of Gateway, which is in the epicenter of this proposed national monument.

They found out about it only because I stopped at their grocery store one day on the way home from Grand Junction and I saw a sign in somebody’s driveway that says protect the Dolores. So I stopped in the grocery store and asked the clerk how his community felt about the proposed national monument. And he goes, what the heck are you talking about? I’m like, I mean, you know, I saw the sign, the Dolores national monument. That’s what that means. And he’s like, we had no idea and they had no clue.

So the proponents of this national monument avoided the communities mostly affected on purpose. And so we just started kicking and screaming. This is not okay. The state of Colorado told us through legislation and through the Colorado Just Transition Action Plan that we could drive our own economic transition and that we would have a just and inclusive transition from coal. And so we’re sticking to that and I’m fighting for that still.

that this is our choice. The state of Colorado said this is our choice and for a group of, you know, extreme environmental organizations coming in and saying, no, we don’t think you should mind and we’re going to do this to you, whether you like it or not. No, the state of Colorado said we could drive our own economic transition and we’ve been doing that and we’re going to continue to do that. And the proponents of this just need to step out of our way. Compromise.

Fine, let’s come to the table and compromise and come up with something that everybody can live with. Not a national monument, possibly a national conservation area along the river. know, nothing that’s going to be detrimental to our mining capabilities. But we’re willing to negotiate on things like that. Are the proponents willing to negotiate on things like that? That remains to be seen. We’ll know here in the next couple of weeks exactly what that means.

But until then, no, I’m making Colorado stick to that promise and just fighting the best way we know how, which is with data and science and facts.

Mark Hinaman (35:39)

Yeah, I’m on their website right now, right? For technical Dolores and it’s got one of their statements that says, yeah, would not impact the vast majority of valid existing mining claims and known mineral loads. Nearly 90 % of mining activity and interest within the Dolores Canyon is outside the discussion boundaries of the proposed national monument. So guess you disagree with that then.

Aimee Tooker (36:02)

Absolutely, I’ve disproved that science left and right. Yeah, and they say that the active, so it’s not the valid and existing, they turn around and call it the active mining claims within the BLM. And so, yes, yes, it is. Yep. Active is totally different than valid and existing, yes. And we’ve got it down to 62%.

Mark Hinaman (36:14)

Yeah, I didn’t just go yeah that was in the same that was in the same sentence or the same paragraph right and so they it would not impact the majority Yeah, wow

Aimee Tooker (36:30)

but it’s still on the Yervain mineral belt. And so the exploration activities would cease. Yes.

Mark Hinaman (36:40)

which there’s tremendous value in the exploration, right? Like to be able to find more minerals, like, yeah.

Aimee Tooker (36:48)

Yep, that’s exactly exactly. You know the exploration industry is a lot different. It’s very simple. It’s a very simple process. They drill down about 350 feet to 1000 feet. It takes a 50 foot by 50 foot area. They bring in a drill rig. You know the the drill workers, you know, stay at our hotels. They eat in our restaurants. You know a lot of the cleanup work is all done by locals. You know, so those exploration activities provide jobs here.

But it’s a very simple process. And if you look at the operations of an exploration company, it’s very simple. They reseed afterwards and make sure that the area is reseeded for sage -grouse or whatever we need of grasses.

Mark Hinaman (37:35)

Well, and sometimes re -contour, right? So in case people aren’t familiar with that term, right? Like they’ll re -contour sometimes. And so try and reshape the shape of the hill or land or topography to what it naturally was within reason. Because sometimes if you’re mining or removing a lot of material from the earth, then yeah, you can end up with these big holes in the ground. But those can be re -contoured or repurposed or generate natural lakes that can be used later, right?

the minerals and soil contents measured. so yeah, and then reseed, meaning like replanting the vegetation that was there previously.

Aimee Tooker (38:18)

Yep, and they monitor that quarterly, you know, and if it’s not going well, you know, then they recede some more and do more work. But all of that is coordinated with the BLM management offices. And so, and with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the counties, you know, all that is coordinated together. So those entities are working together to make sure that they’re doing, they’re going above and beyond to make sure that they can continue to explore.

Mark Hinaman (38:46)

Yeah. I’ll just, I’ll provide an anecdote like from my childhood. mean, I, I’ve been on a well pad with my dad after we plugged a well with the Bureau of Land Management to recontour and reseed a well pad. Right? So I, understand this. I’ve personally done it. and I, I’ve watched it happen over time and it’s like, yeah, no, you come back a year later and there’s more grass there and there’s more vegetation. Then you come back a year later and it’s almost indistinguishable. Like there was never a human there before.

And I’ve seen that’s been a successful and effective process that we’ve used all over the country. It’s not just Colorado. It’s anywhere that the federal lands are managed by the BLM. And I’ve seen it work in Wyoming. And so there’s no reason to think that it shouldn’t work here also, right? to, yeah.

Aimee Tooker (39:38)

Yeah, that’s it too. It’s that, know, these proponents have it in their minds that we’re just going to go and destroy the earth. You know, we live here, we love it. You know, we are the original stewards of the land and we’re not going to let a mining company come in here and destroy our land no matter how much we like the jobs. You know, because we’re all outside all the time. We are, you know, hiking, we’re hunting, we’re backpacking.

You know, we’re four wheeling our Sunday drives or out dinking around in the hills with our kids and our dogs. You know, that’s what we do and we love it here. And we’re not going to stand by and watch any mining company destroy that. You know, we’re going to make sure we’re going to be the first ones in line if there’s a mining company that’s not doing what we think it’s supposed to be doing and the right thing. You know, so, you know, this, this is our front yard. You know, this is where we live.

and this is where we love and this is where we can be close to nature and close to God. And so to have these groups come in and say, we don’t think you should be doing this.

Mark Hinaman (40:46)

So these environmental groups that are supporting this national monument. So it would be a national monument that…

Aimee Tooker (40:55)

Presidential Proclamation. So not anything that goes through Congress. They just want the President to sign it.

Mark Hinaman (40:57)

Okay.

and large, I mean there’s already national monuments in Colorado, right? The Grand Mesa, which is huge, right? And so the fact that this would be even bigger.

Aimee Tooker (41:15)

Well, Colorado National Monument is real close to us over by Fruta and Grand Junction, Mesa Verde, those places. But yeah, it would be the largest. And the Antiquities Act of 1906 states that the president is to reserve the smallest area compatible with the object to be protected. And what the proponents have done is

Mark Hinaman (41:21)

All right.

Aimee Tooker (41:44)

is moved from, we have to protect the Dolores River to we have to protect the Dolores River Canyon Country. And so that is their logic is they can encompass this almost 400 ,000 acres because it’s the Dolores River Canyon Country. You know, and that’s not what the Antiquities Act was meant for. It was meant for things like, you know, Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore, know, and Chimney Rock and, you know, Devil’s Tower, those small areas.

But this national monument posal is massive and it totally goes against those smallest area compatible principles.

Mark Hinaman (42:23)

I think it’s radically unfair. Yeah, primarily because, especially, I imagine a lot of the people and proponents don’t live there. And so they don’t know or experience what it takes to make a living, to exist in that part of the world and do both. And so I think your term anti -human feels very appropriate.

Aimee Tooker (42:29)

Me too!

exactly. They don’t.

Mark Hinaman (42:53)

and it’s really frustrating, but it’s cause like I’ve been to press the Dolores Canyon and that part of Colorado. is really cool. It’s awesome. Right? Like when there’s, it’ll be great to raft and I’m that you can still go on raft, you know, it’s cooler than desolate wilderness, economy and jobs and like being able to feed your family and like not at the expense of the environment, but, frankly, often the people there are stewarding the environment and taking better care of it than it would be with just tourists coming through. Right. Like I.

Aimee Tooker (43:00)

Yeah.

Yeah, we don’t want it exploited. You know, we don’t want to turn a big green open sign above the Dolores River and say, come one, come all, know, fulfill your bucket list. You know, we don’t want those bucket listers here. The bucket listers that, you know, this is a very remote, it’s hot in the summer. There’s no cell service, you know, so the people that are not used to that type of environment that are coming here, you know, just to take a selfie off the cliffside.

scare us. We don’t have the emergency services to find the people to be rescued. So it’s going to take a long time just to rescue these people that are going to get hurt in the back country because they’re not prepared for what they’re coming into. It’s the exploitation of our lands. A national monument over in Moab, the arches, you have to have a reservation now and the line of cars just to get into the arches, you’re going to be sitting there all day.

You know, we don’t want to ever get to that point. know, when we go out for a drive and we go out hiking, we don’t see anybody all day long. Nobody. And that’s why we live here. You know, we want to go out and have the solitude and the quietness. You know, we don’t want to have to go stand in line and be in line of cars just to, you know, go to our favorite little camping spot or favorite spot to go.

cook a hot dog with the kids and hike around and look for rocks. That’s part of our culture and that’s part of why we live here and to have that exploited just makes us sick.

Mark Hinaman (45:03)

Yeah. Well, I mean, what can people do to help?

Aimee Tooker (45:06)

Our senators definitely need to be told how people feel about it. The Antiquities Act, you know, it’s not 1906 anymore. It’s 2024. You know, that needs to be amended. You know, I understand the need to protect certain areas, but that was, you know, 100 years ago. We’re not that country anymore. We can do it.

together we can do it bipartisan and we can come to some sort of compromise and negotiation where real science and real data is used to make these land management decisions. This proposed national monument is created with science created by the proponents. You know that’s what they’re using to back all this up. Well we’ve got this biodiversity we got to protect. Okay well show me the science.

well, it’s written by our partners in the coalition. It’s not any science that’s independent. So some apples to apples comparison of what we feel needs to be protected and what they feel needs to be protected needs to be at the table. It needs to be open and transparent. What I’ve done here recently is dug into the proponents science and data.

and they’re saying, we’ve got five imperiled species here that we have to take care of. Well, that’s not true. You’ve got two imperiled species and one of them’s a butterfly that only lives in permanent spring fed meadows, which we’re in the high desert. So, I mean, there’s very few permanent spring fed meadows here to even, you know, for the butterfly to live in. And then the Gunnison Sage Grouse, which the Gunnison Sage Grouse isn’t even near here. It’s down.

In the basin, about 30 miles away, there’s habitat and 41 % of its habitat is on private land. So the BLM and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife, working with private landowners and on state lands, are going to be the ones that bring that up to a point where they’re not in peril species anymore. So having that science and data is huge. The Department of Energy did a huge study years ago when we were trying to get the uranium mill built here.

And I’ve been digging through all that data and it’s like no adverse impacts to the to the habitat and no we don’t have any species to worry about and reclamation will make it better than it was to begin with. So I mean so the proponent studies and the Department of Energy studies that were done through NEPA, through the Preservation Act, through you know Fish and Wildlife Service, through all these cooperating agencies.

which included all of the tribes, like over 20 tribes were able to either cooperate or they were able to comment on this Department of Energy uranium leasing program. And they did. And so it’s like, okay, so let’s take this study that you guys created on your own with your partners and all the studies that the Department of Energy has done and sit at the table and hash it out. But that’s not what the proponents want to do. They just say that they have the moral authority.

and they know better than we do and our government for that matter. Yeah, I don’t know. That Antiquities Act needs to be amended.

Mark Hinaman (48:31)

Yeah. So amending the antiquities act, I guess that is there anything that Congress can do or to stop like a presidential proclamation for like, so if Biden on his way out, wanted to assign this and make it happen, that to be revolved by a future president or

Aimee Tooker (48:51)

It could be. No national monument has ever been rescinded. It’s been shrunk. Obama created Bears Ears. Trump got in there and shrunk it down. Biden got in there and got it to where it was originally at. So it’s a political football, these national monument proposals and presidential proclamations. So the national monuments need to go through Congress and they need to go through the proper studies and through the proper channels. I mean, it may take longer, yes.

but that’s the proper way to do it. So to have these national monuments as political footballs and the states, you know, and the local communities need to have a say so this is our economy and this is our front yard. You know, these proponents say, well, you know, people in Florida should have a say so on what happens to the Dolores river. Well, yeah, that’s fine. But they don’t live here.

You know, they don’t know where the visitors go. They don’t know where the, you know, the your your van mineral belt is. They don’t know our assets and the culture and social, you know, economics of these communities. And that has to take precedence. The people that live here have to take precedence over that. You know, the Escalante Grand Staircase is a perfect example. Before the monument went in there, they had two grocery stores that they were

able to sustain. That community has been decimated and they can barely sustain one grocery store. You know, so that’s just an example of a monument not helping the economy there in that community. So, I mean, we could be at one spectrum of being overrun with people and exploited or we could go to the whole other where we’re just completely decimated. You know, we’re not okay with either one of those. So it’s really a balance and it should be a locally developed.

conservation effort. know, Biden said that in his America the Beautiful initiative. These conservation efforts should be locally led and locally developed for the benefit of all. And that is not what these national monument proponents are doing to us. It’s not locally led and it’s not for the benefit of all.

Mark Hinaman (51:07)

Where are the

Aimee Tooker (51:10)

Grand Junction, Durango, Peonia, Denver. I mean they don’t live here. They’re at very least two hours away. That’s probably the closest is two hours away.

Mark Hinaman (51:23)

Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. Okay, so talking to talking to their talking to their senators. What else?

Aimee Tooker (51:32)

Mm hmm. Yeah, we need people to to advocate for the amendment of the of the Antiquities Act. Senators Bennett and Senator Hickenlooper are definitely the ones that would be bringing the proposal to, you know, the president.

It’s just that these environmental groups have so much money and so much power. And so it’s really hard to even work with the BLM on things because these same groups are suing the BLM offices to change their management plans. So I mean, they’re coming at us from all different angles. So curtailing that and making sure that there is a open and transparent and cohesive process.

to all land management decisions is huge and that’s what is needed.

Mark Hinaman (52:26)

Yeah. Amy, we’re coming up on our time. I appreciate you sharing all of this. Is there anything else that I guess you can say for folks? yeah, maybe paint a picture of what you think the ideal outcome would be. I feel like I’ve got most of it, but.

Aimee Tooker (52:47)

The ideal outcome would be to draw attention to what this has done. We’ve definitely drawn attention to the community and the plight that we’re in, but it’s the process that we want to really draw attention to. So to have that National Monument Presidential Proclamation changed and have that process totally redeveloped.

You know, so there’s not so much adversarial things, know, opposition and proponents, you know, you know, those things need to change. We, we are a nation of people that can come to the table and talk. and the behind the backs thing, politics, you know,

For the greater good, we need to come to the table and make some decisions together. And so I think that would be good that came out of it is to change that process and to have something that the local communities can really get on board with, that our values and our economic prosperity is protected and that our locally developed processes are able to continue to grow and grow organically.

that we’ve been working on, you know, and that’s it, is drawing attention to the process.

Mark Hinaman (54:13)

Well, Amy Tooker, thanks so much for your time. I’ve really appreciated the conversation. Hopefully we can get some action from getting the word out, right? Small town, but we can use this as a microphone to make it even louder.

Aimee Tooker (54:23)

Yes, thank you.

That sounds wonderful. I appreciate it so much. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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