West Elk Mine, owned by Mountain Coal Company, had opened a new section of their mining operation at the top of Sylvester Gulch. The only access to this area was through a neighboring town, a trip of over 30 miles on forest service roads. These narrow and steep roads were not designed for heavy mining machinery and the potential for environmental damage was very high. The mine saw that its employees and vehicles were taking a much longer route than would be necessary if there was a road in Sylvester Gulch itself. It was decided that the savings in time, liability, and equipment maintenance would easily off-set the cost of a new access road to the mine site.
Sunrise worked with the National Forest Service to assist in the preparation of the Environmental Assessment, evaluating the purpose and need for the roadway.
Sunrise staff traveled the proposed route of the new roadway to analyze where it should be located. They used their site knowledge along with accurate survey data to design the horizontal and vertical alignments of the road. During this initial alignment placement, Sunrise staff made sure the road avoided potentially problematic sites such as springs and landslide areas.
The road closely followed the contours and slopes of the surrounding mountains, requiring Sunrise staff to model the slope stability of the roadway as it ascended the gulch.
An important aspect of this project was the lack of borrow materials (used for structural fill) located close to the site and not in landslide areas. Sunrise assisted in the locating and approval of safe borrow materials, a supply which was fairly small. Because of the limited amount of material, as well as the unstable soils in the gulch our designs had to be sensitive to the amount of cut and fill that was required for the roadway.
Because the road wound through the natural drainage of the canyon, (and as the canyon narrowed, on top of the drainage), a hydrology model was developed to estimate the amount of run-off in the gulch. This information was used to prepare the hydraulic design for the layout, as well as size and slope calculations, of the various culverts.
With the high landslide potential in the area Mountain Coal Company and the forest service requested Sunrise supply an observer during the construction process. Our observer ensured that all phases of construction followed our engineering specifications and designs.
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