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At Atlantic Richfield's new Black Thunder mine, twelve miles southeast of the windy, pastel-painted trailer town of Wright, mining cranes seven stories tall are equipped with dinosaur-size shovels that claw seams of coal 70-ft. thick from the sandy soil. Not only is surface mining here cheaper than traditional underground mining in the rugged Appalachians, but also the coal spews fewer sulfur pollutants when burned. Overlooking the vast canyon of coal sparkling in the afternoon sun, Bob Blanchard, production manager at Black Thunder, predicts, "We'll be kicking out 5 million tons of coal this year." By 1983 that figure is planned to hit 20 million tons, making Black Thunder the world's largest coal mine.
The size of such projects poses problems, notably the need to expand existing rail facilities to deliver the coal. Denver is the region's rail center, and it expects to be hard put to handle the growth in train shipments, which could jump ten times in the next five years. Area residents living near rail lines complain that coal trains, many of them 110 cars long, are disrupting traffic and hurting business. In Littleton, a suburb ten miles south of Denver, the main street is closed to traffic for up to five hours a day to allow coal trains to pass. Complains City Manager Gale Christy: "What's worse, it's getting worse."
Proposals for alternative means of transporting coal have been rejected so far. Last month Wyoming Governor Ed Herschler refused to bend state environmental laws to permit construction of a $1.8 billion slurry pipeline designed to move coal from Wyoming mines to Houston power plants. State officials estimated that every million tons of coal shipped by slurry would deplete the area's limited water supply by as much as 260 million gal. Throughout the region, bitter battles will pit job-creating energy developers against preservation-minded environmentalists. The fights will be intense because the need for pure and plentiful water, clean air and unscarred land has always ranked high on the West's list of priorities.
All the benefits and all the disabilities of growth will affect Denver. As its population increases, housing costs are soaring. Typically, a three-bedroom house that sold six years ago for $35,000 today fetches $105,000. Says Real Estate Salesman George G. Martin: "Around here owners don't shoot for 100% of the asking price, they shoot for 110%."
Denver already has more car owners per inhabitant than any other U.S. city, and auto congestion is a thickening problem. Because its mile-high air contains less oxygen, its cars exhaust twice as much carbon monoxide as autos in lower-lying cities. In the winter, temperature inversions create a "brown cloud" that hangs over the Denver basin and across the front range.
Denver and its region have had mining booms before, only to slump after the gold, silver and other ores gave out. So there is rising public pressure for the new development to be measured and well planned. In sum, Denver is a city on the move, but some of the movement will have to be closely controlled by local officials.
Still, no metropolis in the nation offers more opportunity in the 1980s.