Life in a Mining Town

Sometimes, it is easy to forget that Superior is a Mining Town. Though the true copper mine closed up close to forty years ago, the people that live here still regard themselves as miners. It's like fishing, once a fisherman always a fisherman. So are the miners. Once a miner... etc. Currently, Resolution Copper which bought the old Magma Copper Mine is doing reclamation on the old site just west of town, in preparation for getting the land exchange through Congress for the new site east of town up near Apache Leap. So mining activities go on in this town, even though for the most part, townspeople like me aren't that aware of all the mining activity that is occurring. Until last week, that is...

On Monday, we heard and felt a big boom of blasting in the morning. It reminded us that yes, we do live in a mining town. On Tuesday, Bill and I were sitting in the office working at the computers when another blast boomed out. It sounded like one of our earthquakes in California.

Chuy was laying in the hallway and looked up, tense and worried. "It's okay, Chu!" I reassured him. "You livin' in a mining town now, Dog."

He remained halfway up on his haunches, not ready to resume his nap. What was wrong with his people that they hadn't bolted out of the house? Wasn't that what Sane Folks would do?

"Go back to sleep, Chuy," Bill ordered. "You're okay."

Down in the basement, I heard the macaws flutter around and squawk. They were thinking earthquake too. They're really good earthquake predictors, and usually give me about a thirty seconds heads up. But this had thrown them for a loop too. No early warning sound waves for them this time.

We went back to work and didn't think anything about it, until a few days later. We were walking down Main Street and stopped in front of City Hall to read the notices on the bulliten board. I was curious to see a letter with Resolution Copper's letterhead. Seems on that Tuesday that Chuy was so concerned with the noisy blasting, a forty pound chunk of rock became airborne and traveled twelve hundred feet before crashing through a roof of a house on the north side of town. Though the house was occupied, fortunately the person escaped injury. Resolution was investigating the accident as were folks from the Federal Mining Safety office so they were letting Chuy and the other townspeople know that until the investigation was complete, blasting would be discontinued for the time being.

Crap! Never in my wildest dreams would I have worried about an errant rock blown across town from the mine to come crashing through my roof! What a wake up call that would be. No wonder Chuy and the birds were worried! They had already assumed the Worst Possible Situation. Bill said the rock would be bad enough, but what if you had your attic stuffed with junk and odds and ends of furniture? Then it would become a possible instrument of doom too. I think our attic is relatively empty. Bill goes up there occasionally to crawl around and fix stuff. But it gives me something else to think about.

On the bright side, however, we do live south of Main Street. The mine is located north of it. There'd be a few more rows of homes before rocks would rain down. But wait until they start blasting out the new underground mine near Apache Leap. We live right under the shadow of the Leap, so I've got something else to keep me awake at night. HA!