Despite overwhelming public opposition, a ghost town booms again

In mid-November, the view looking east from the Old Highway 89 bridge across Hell Canyon seven miles north of Paulden is of chaparral—green, yellow and splashed with red this time of year—creeping along the base of the canyon and clinging to the steep, protruding red-brown walls. A sandy path, gold and brown and sculpted with ripples and creases left from the last flood winds through the tangled shrubs on the canyon floor. Out of this natural landscape, the 106-year-old steel Santa Fe railway bridge rises nearly 200 feet from the ground, paralleling the horizon. A hundred years ago the children living in the now-ghost town of Drake used to walk across the bridge on their way to and from the schoolhouse, which was on the other side of the canyon in another now-ghost town called Puntenney. Their teacher had a train schedule for the line and told them when it was safe to cross.

Now a part of Prescott National Forest, the land has no designated trail leading to it and is not a formal recreation area. For a century it has been a secret sanctuary, used mostly by locals and hunters. But this placid landscape is about to change.

In February, 2008 the Drake Cement Company, LLC, will begin excavating limestone on the south side of Hell Canyon near the remains of the town of Puntenney, now National Forest land. A mile away, on privately owned land in Drake, the company will build a cement plant to process the limestone into dry cement for shipment throughout the southwest. A conveyor belt to carry the limestone from the mine to the cement plant will run from the quarry across the historic Old Highway 89 bridge, up the north wall of Hell Canyon, under the historic Santa Fe railway bridge and into the ghost town of Drake to the cement plant.

On a hot day in November I met with Drake’s Chief Operating Officer, Cliff Ayers, at the site of the future cement plant. On the way there I followed a water truck and a semi north out of Paulden to County Road 71, which turned into a dirt road just before entering the ghost town. It was a windless and dry day, and I could see in my rearview mirror the dust hanging in the air, kicked up from our three-vehicle parade.

The scraped-earth construction site is a stark contrast to the desert/chaparral landscape in which it sits. Two white modular buildings squat at the forefront of flat, brown squares of cleared earth; heavy construction equipment scattered about the site seem to hover in the desert heat.

Ayers is an affable man, greeting me with a handshake and welcoming me into his office in one of the modulars. A Yavapai County local raised in nearby Verde Valley, Ayers ardently believes the limestone mine and the cement operation will help his community and the state of Arizona. “This is my backyard,” he assured me. “I don’t want to do anything to harm the environment.”

In 2004, when Drake Cement submitted the proposed mine's Plan of Operations to the Forest Service for review, Arizona was experiencing a cement shortage. According to Ayers, cement came from  California and from as far away as China. The Drake project will supply cement to Arizona, which Ayers hopes will cut down on the cost of shipping it from so far away. The project will also add 60 to 80 jobs to northern Yavapai County.

The Yavapai-Apache Nation is a financial partner in the Drake Cement Company; the current Chairman of the tribe, Thomas Beauty, declined to comment on the project for this article. The previous Chairman, Jamie Fullmer, wrote a letter to the Forest Service in 2004 during the first request for public comments, summarizing the tribe’s historical roots in the area, claiming ownership of the mineral rights and a vested interest in how the land is developed. He concluded his letter with the support of an Environmental Assessment and his desire for the project to move quickly.

Outside of the Yavapai-Apache Nation and Drake Cement's personnel, however, virtually all the letters Prescott National Forest officials received during the public comment period in 2004 opposed the plan. 

In the three years since Drake submitted its Plan of Operation to the Forest Service, the need for concrete in Arizona has eased as the pace of housing development has slowed, and environmental concerns over the cement operations remain. One of the most active voices against the project belongs to the Friends of the Prescott National Forest advocate, Bob Grossman. Among Grossman’s concerns is that in permitting the mine, the Forest Service and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) are violating regulations that prohibit the dumping of debris on Forest Service land—in this instance, the fine particles released into the air from both the cement plant and the mine that will carpet the National Forest.

Grossman’s biggest concern about particles from the cement operation falling onto National Forest land involves the area's drainage system into Northern Arizona’s lifeblood, the Verde River, which lies nine miles away.

“Start with Hell Canyon,” he said. “It doesn’t get much rain until the springtime deluge. Nothing in Chino Valley pours into the Canyon, so when it drains into the Verde River it hasn’t been diluted.” Picture tons of fine particles from both the mine and the cement plant settling and concentrating on the bottom of Hell Canyon, and then washing, all at once, into the Verde.  “It will affect the river,” Grossman said, “but the Forest Service refuses to look at it.”

Why? Because of a technicality that doesn't allow the USFS Environmental Assessment (EA) to consider the negative environmental impacts of the Drake Cement operation. The EA can only consider the mining portion of the operation because the mining will occur on USFS land; the cement plant itself is an “inholding” - private property surrounded by National Forest. Since the cement plant isn't on USFS land, the Forest Service cannot regulate it.

The state is also failing to regulate the operation to the safest possible standards of public health and safety. Take for example Drake Cement’s Air Quality Class I Permit, issued by ADEQ and covering both the cement plant and the limestone mine. Ayres said Drake Cement is installing dust collectors and filters, as well as sensitive particle receptors mandated by ADEQ that will monitor the coarse particulate matter (PM 10) released into the air during operations. Drake will subsequently shut down the quarry and cement plant if levels exceed specified limits. But Grossman said this isn't enough.

The particles Grossman is concerned about are less than 2.5 microns in size and include the breakdown of toxic organic compounds and heavy metals, both of which will be emitted from the cement kiln. These are the particles that pose the biggest health risks; they are more toxic in nature, can travel deeper into the lungs, and are a cause of lung disease, emphysema and cancer. These PM 2.5 particles are the emissions that ADEQ is failing to regulate under Drake Cement’s Air Quality Permit.

There are other concerns as well, among them traffic congestion and safety on Hwy 89, the displacement of wildlife in the disturbed area, and the impact of both operations on the local water table. While the project's EA addresses all these issues, concerned citizens are not assured by the EA’s list of preventative actions. Grossman blames pressures on the Forest Service’s administration for allowing the permit. “They don’t have the resources to do what they need to do at the local level,” Grossman said. “They're spread too thin.”

The water issue is perhaps the most sensitive. Ayers said that making cement to be shipped in powdered form is a dry process, and that both the mine and the cement plant will only use minimal groundwater for dust suppression and worker hygiene. However, the EA accompanying Drake's Plan of Operation stipulates Drake will pump eight acre-feet of groundwater per year for mining activities (one acre-foot of water is about 325,851 gallons). Either the information from Ayers and the EA are in conflict, or else Drake considers 2.6 million gallons of water per year “minimal.”

The EA concludes this pumpage could eventually impact the groundwater flow patterns of the upper Verde River, but impact to the base flow will be too small to measure. The USGS hydrogeologic review conducted for the project concludes that Drake's groundwater withdrawals would be impossible to differentiate from current and larger water withdrawals that may reduce base-flow discharge of the upper Verde River in the future.

Mike Smith, the Prescott National Forest Service Geologist overseeing the mining operation, said USFS will continually evaluate and inspect the mine, and a hydrologist will conduct on-site inspections. But more effective than a USFS hydrologist in this matter, the mine-and-cement plant has produced an unlikely partnership of convenience between Drake Cement and the Salt River Project (SRP), which provides water to Phoenix. During the 2004 public comment period SRP sent PNF a letter of, if not outright opposition to Drake Cement's plan, then one of cautious disapproval. SRPs interest is in the Verde River, which drains into the Salt River, and Drake's pumpage of the aquifer that will intercept groundwater flowing to the Verde River. The SRP  letter lead to a partnership between the two organizations, and SRP is now deciding on the sites for Drake Cement's water pumping and is independently performing the monitoring for the project.

“The Forest Service will act as a facilitator for this partnership,” Smith said. 

So, the natural sounds of Hell Canyon—the soft hum of the breeze past the ancient strata, the faint song of a spotted towhee—will once again be displaced by the crashing, cracking and pounding of rock. Time will reveal the impact of sediment and dust from the mine and cement plant on the land, the air and the river. Time will reveal the impacts on the watershed and the local wildlife.

Time has brought the ghost town of Drake back to life.

Comments (1)