We're not sitting on our hands waiting for someone to hand us money. With smaller watershed groups and state and local government being open to new ideas, our job is to see that other solutions are being put into practice.

The supervisors and FROST had requested a private meeting at the end of the review process to discuss what was going to be in the permit. We were doing what we were asked to do. If we had known the trouble this would cause, we wouldn't have done it that way.

I think they appreciate that; our modern mining industry sometimes faces a lot of anti-mining bias based on things that were done in the past.

When a roof falls from 40 feet, it's going to be catastrophic.

If you try to undertake what is a $5 billion problem here on a month-to-month basis, it's going to take a long, long time at that rate to see significant results. It's important to us to know how much we're getting and for how long.

Yes, it's going to hurt. But if it saves us money in the long run, and if we get better vehicles out of it, we'll take a step back, but maybe take three steps forward.