Show its ifs raining liquid gold underground in utah mine wl 4 f 1 0 41 1 ai miner 1960 feet below surface at silver king mine park city district the flow of water shows how utah mine problems increase with de depth p th water the liquid gold to utah s economy is becoming more and more a problem to the mining industry in the extraction of the state states s mineral resources As the mines sink progressively deeper in their quest for metals the inexorable supply of water in creases naturally the pumping adds greatly to the costs inherent in deeper mining A striking example of this is the silver king coalition mine at park city utah a mine that has been in almost continuous prodoc tion for 75 years the silver king has driven over miles of under ground workings during this period in order to keep ore reserves ahead of production the ore has led the silver king deeper and deeper and further into the mountains to the west of he the town of park city until today a depth of feet has been reach ed on the foot level the sil ver king encountered a new ore body but with it came a bremen dous flow of water it required nearly 2 years and the expenditure of tho thousands hsands of dollars to lick the water lem on this level so that valuable ore could be lifted to the surface A flow of gallons per minute is being pumped from this bottommost in ost part of the mine it is raised feet to the 1800 1300 foot level where it is permitted to drain out the spiro tunnel the ile silver king is pumping enough water to irrigate acres of farm land this in itself is a valuable resource to utah s semi and arid land but we must keep the mine in operation to make the water available |