At about the same time, state and federal officials also began hearing about activity at and around the mine and went out to investigate. “There was rock being moved,” said Charles Thomas, director of the state’s mining and minerals division. “There was equipment on site that was processing rock.” It turned out that an Arizona-based company called Gulf Coast Mining was, indeed, illegally mining low-grade iron ore from the old mine, Thomas said. The company hadn’t bothered to obtain any permits from the state to open the mine, he said. So on June 15, the state ordered the company to stop mining operations immediately. But then officials noticed another problem. In order to get the heavy equipment to the mine site, which is located on private land, mine workers took a bulldozer and turned a three-mile stretch of narrow, rough road into a wide, graded road. The problem with that was the road cuts across land owned by both Bureau of Land Management and the New Mexico State Land Office. “They’re in trespass,” said Michael Quintana, a state land office investigator. “They did not have our permission.”...more
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