BLACK MESA MINE

Black Mesa Mine's Family appreciation day dinner, September 2003. This happened just before the Black Mesa was schedule for shut down due to variety of issues. The Mohave Generating stations was having complication with Updating and renovating it's smoke stacks and equipping it with scrubbers. At this time Black Mesa Mine / Black Mesa Pipeline was facing issues with water use, as fresh water from under ground N-aquifer was used to slurry the coal as it was pipe lined to Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada. Black Mesa mine was eventually shut down.
Here is one of Peabody Coal Company's Dragline. A massive piece of equipment. During Family Appreciation Day, we were allowed to take a tour of the mining site. My dad told me how he the booms of the Dragline would break and he would be called out of the shop to do week long, long hours, repairing the damaged booms. The drag line booms are about 100 yards long.
It was cool to see Parents, Grand Parents showing their children and grandchildren where they worked. I like everyone else was impressed by the gigantic equipment.
I was told this bucket holds 90 cubic yards of dirt. 90 cubit yards of Dirt in one scoop. That's alot of earth.
Here we have an retired employee and current employee looking at the Bull Dozer. I have the Information about this dozer some where, but what surprised me was when our tour guide said this is the smaller one, the bigger ones are working right now in another pit, moving overburden material. I was like what? Big? There's larger one? He looked at me and said "Yeah!" Hahahaha!
Here is the conveyor belt system of the Black Mesa Pipe Line operation.You can see to the right of the white truck a huge pile of ground up coal that's almost prepared to be made into coal slurry. To the right of the picture you can see part of the water tanks where the Coal and Water are mixed, made into a slurry and shot down a pipeline to Laughlin, Nevada to Edison's coal burning Generation Station.
I was here waiting for my turn to take the safety class. We all had to take a safety class before we went on the tour. It was an interesting process. They did this 6 people at a time, it's good thing I arrived early because later in the day the line was long.
Here they displayed how they transport the coal haulers tires around. They have a tire mounting press in back of the shop. You can see that tire is massive. On the tire in white they wrote the price of each tire, $4,200.00 per tire.
Here is a front end loader, I sure wished this was my job, I would love to drive this equipment around. My childhood dream. I envy those guys who can do this.
This picture is from the Employee parking area behind the Black Mesa Repair Shop. This where my dad worked for over 30 Years.You can see families leaving after lunch was served.
Here is an inside picture of the Shop where my dad worked welding and repairing all the heavy equipment. I got to see my dad's locker where he kept all his tools and equipment that he need everyday.

Here my dad is standing by one of the dump trucks, he explained how these truck came in parts and how they had to assemble them. He also explained what were the common repairs he made to the heavy equipment. After all they moving unimaginable amounts of material.

In December 2011, I passed by this mine shop and the everything is quiet, all the garage bay doors are closed, activity has ceased.

Additional Notes:

Black Mesa Mine Repair Shop's Coordinates: 36* 26' 44.96"N by 110* 23' 40.23" W

Black Mesa Mine Pipeline Coordinates as seen in the picture :

36* 26' 38.29" N by 110* 23' 30.12" W

Center of 4 slurry silos coordinates: 36* 26' 26.64" N by 110* 23' 36.90" W

Mohave Generation station operated from 1971 to 2005 in Laughlin Nevada. Mohave Generation station produced so much emissions it polluted the Grand Canyon, failing to meet the EPA's emission standards it was forced to be shut down and dismantled.