I just came from the World Heritage site of Paquimé, Chihuahua. (Read The Chaco Meridian by Stephen H. Lekson – Second edition). People went from Chaco to Aztec to Paquimé all on the same meridian. North/south was important to them, which is why they built the north road out of Chaco. Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua or maybe a different company in Mexico is the largest cement company in the world.
King Coal is a very good coal. It has been shipped to Japan for steel-making. I worked for BHP, an Australian company, at the La Plata Mine just below the state line.
We were given a special award from the EPA for our reclamation work. We built a 20-mile private road through the Ute reservation to the San Juan Generating Station. We gave preference to local people and the Utes for employment.
When BHP went underground, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars opening up a new mine. It is not cheap to open a new mine, but it is cheap to build a small private road. BHP also made a park by the highway for the La Plata, N.M. residents.
Ed Swior
Vallecito
