{"id":43717,"date":"2021-11-16T23:35:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T06:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/county-worries-about-potential-fire-at-ironwood-mill-requires-mitigation-before-expansion\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:15:24","slug":"county-worries-about-potential-fire-at-ironwood-mill-requires-mitigation-before-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/county-worries-about-potential-fire-at-ironwood-mill-requires-mitigation-before-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"County worries about potential fire at IronWood mill, requires mitigation before expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The log inventory at the IronWood mill is growing. More than 50 mill workers have been hired, and the company is looking to hire more.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Montezuma County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to postpone discussion about on-site housing for employees at the IronWood mill in Dolores until February.<\/p>\n

Most mill staff have been laid off for the winter, and county officials said that while the mill experiences an approximate six-month hiatus from regular operation \u2013 depending on winter weather \u2013 it should first work on combating the growing pile of wood chips on its property at 27736 County Road T. The chips, they said, pose a fire threat, and bring memories of recent past fires \u2014 one at the Aspen Wall Wood mill in Dolores and one at the Western Excelsior Corp. mill in Mancos.<\/p>\n

Mark Hartman, chief financial officer, and Wade Bentley, plant manager at IronWood, were present for the meeting as commissioners heard the proposal for the 1.5-acre planned unit development on IronWood Group LLC\u2019s property.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve really been challenged with being able to get enough employees to fully staff the operation,\u201d Hartman said.<\/p>\n

A lack of affordable housing in the county has significantly contributed to the mill\u2019s inability to source staff, he said, and pushed Hartman to buy the units currently on the property, which he said would allow workers to \u201csafely and economically put their heads on a pillow at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless we can fully staff the operation, we have no chance of long-term success,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Planning and Zoning Commissioners voted 4-1 Oct. 14 to recommend the housing proposal to the county commissioners.<\/p>\n

Dolores residents neighboring the mill have passionately followed mill expansion plans \u2013 including officially shifting to 24\/7 operation \u2013 and the commissioners meeting Tuesday was no exception.<\/p>\n

While residents lauded commissioners for tabling the housing proposals and requiring a fire mitigation plan, they still expressed concern over potential disturbances, including crime, that could result from on-site housing.<\/p>\n

Resident Trent Bishop said a petition with signatures from 97 residents urged commissioners to reject the housing proposal. He said that he would start carrying a gun if workers moved onto the mill\u2019s property.<\/p>\n

Residents called for additional details on the proposed housing.<\/p>\n

Rose Jergens was one of a few residents to question who would move into the facilities. She wondered whether the housing would be like \u201cwork camps,\u201d which she said are \u201chotbeds for rape, domestic violence and sex trafficking,\u201d or \u201cfamily housing,\u201d which she said could impact children who might live there.<\/p>\n

The housing development would feature 23 bedrooms across six units with five kitchens. The units are already on the property, but they have not yet been equipped with utilities. Planning and Zoning Director Don Haley has disputed claims that it was illegal for the empty units to be stored on the property before they were permitted for use.<\/p>\n

Haley said at Tuesday\u2019s Board of County Commissioners meeting that the housing proposal wouldn\u2019t affect mill operation. He said he expects the mill to submit a written mitigation plan for its proposals by Feb. 1.<\/p>\n

At the meeting, Commissioner Jim Candelaria was a pivotal voice in the call for a fire mitigation plan before mill expansion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we look at when we have a pile like this is we have a smoldering fire that\u2019s going to go on forever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said that in original mill conversations, it was discussed that chip piles would be separated by 20 to 30 feet of space, which hasn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n

He invited County Emergency Manager Jim Spratlen to speak in-depth about the expanding chip pile and fire hazard and mitigation strategies.<\/p>\n

Spratlen said he \u2014 along with Dolores Fire Chief Mike Zion, County Administrator Shak Powers and County Public Information Officer Vicki Shaffer \u2013 visited the sprawling stack Friday.<\/p>\n

Spratlen said he noticed that the mill has embarked on efforts to downsize what one resident referred to as a \u201cmammoth mountain\u201d at the Oct. 14 Planning and Zoning meeting.<\/p>\n

Mill representatives present at the commissioner\u2019s meeting said several tactics for downsizing were being executed, including giving away wood for free. For example, an Albuquerque company is purchasing some of the chips. The mill said it will no longer add to the pile, thanks to new machinery that will separate chip and bark into sellable products.<\/p>\n

Powers added that Montezuma County Landfill Manager Mel Jarmon agreed to compost some of the chips for free. Powers also advised mill representatives to work with Shaffer to bolster marketing strategies to further distribute free wood.<\/p>\n

Spratlen estimated the wood chip piles to be 45 to 60 feet high. He wants them reduced to about 25 feet in height.<\/p>\n

County Attorney Ian MacLaren clarified that a fire mitigation plan also was necessary before approving on-site housing because employees would face a direct risk of being in the line of any fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to hurt you; however, we\u2019re trying to look out for the entire county to make sure we have this taken care of before we move anything else forward,\u201d Candelaria said to the mill representatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Approval for on-site housing development postponed until fire mitigation is implemented <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,28,167,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85810,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43717\/revisions\/85810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43717"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}