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Show THE SAN MIGUEL POWER ASSOCIATION, INC. A RURAL ELECTRIFICATION PROJECT In Southwestern Colorado, on an Immense tableland known as the Colorado Plateau a rugged, desolate area of sharply rising mesas and deep cut canyons vast uranium ore mining operations are going on 24 hours a day in the endeavor to Insure our country's security. The immensity of the uranium country can best be visualized by knowing that IU area of 65,000 square miles is far bigger, for instance, than England's 58,000 square miles and even larger than New York State's 49,000 square milts. Coloradans generally speak of this huge area as "Four Corners" country. They mean, roughly, the sparsely populated region surrounding the only place In the U. S. where the corners of four states-Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet at one point. It Is one of the last frontiers of America, but today is a beehive of mining activity in the search for the uranium ore which has become vitally important. The Colorado Plateau is now the second largest source of uranium in the world, ranking only behind the Belgian Congo. The U. S. Vanadium Company, a division of Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, which also operates the Oak Ridge, Tenn., Atomic Laboratory, has 10 uranium ore processing mills scattered over the general area. The "hottest" of all the spots on the Colorado Plateau today is centered in the area of smalt communities on the San Miguel River near the Utah line that are shown on your Colorado maps as Nucla, Naturita and Uravan. This is the center of a region that has many workable ore veins happily near processing mills that extract the few pounds of uranium "yellow cake" concentrate and vanadium "red cake" from each ton of waste rock. These are the very minerals with which the Navajos and Utes, a hundred and more years ago, decorated their bodies with brilliant red and yellow war paints. In this area, near where the San Miguel River Joins the Dolores to flow on into Utah, the canyon-walled town of Uravan has the country's biggest uranium processing mllL It is here that the San Miguel Power Association, Inc, a rural electric co-operative put into petition In 1910, Is performing one of the most unusual and important power supply roles of any of the 22 rural electric co-ops In Colorado. This Co-op, with headquarters at Nucla. about &5 miles south of Grand Junction, is an outstanding example of how a rural electric cooperative has gone far beyond its original and continuing purpose of supplying electricity to farmers by being on the right spot at the right time to serve these uranium processing mills. The importance of these mills and the Importance of keeping electric power flowing to them day and night cannot be overestimated, The seven present directors of the San Miguel Power Association, Inc., include: Gordon Palmer, president, a rancher-stockman of Norwood; Joe Willoughby, vice president, a mining man of Nucla; George G. Wilson, secretary-treasurer, Nucla merchant: Glen Jacobs, Norwood rancher; Margaret Murphy, teacher in the Nucla Grade School; Don Watson, rancher of Nucla: and Otho Aycrs, rancher-stockman of Bedrock, Colorado. The San Miguel Co-op, like all rural electrics, Is at big taxpayer in its community, paying property tax of $8,402.31 and sales tax of $6,323.73 In 1953. Taxes In 1954 were even higher. Payroll during 1953 was $51,402.97 for 16 full time and 13 part time employees. The Co-op Is $67,000 ahead on its required payments to the REA on Its original loans. The Distribution and Transmission equipment Is valued at $700,000 and general plant equipment at $50,000. Power costs for 1933 were $156,668.82 for 13,-443,320 kwh purchased and 14,582,928 used. Average cost per kilowatt hour was .01 and average selling price was .0214. Total revenue for 1953 was $314,-043.13. This compares to $246,898.74 in 1952. Today, San Miguel Co-op has 1,750 connected consumers and 340 miles of line, of which G3 miles are transmission. Source of power Is at Telluride, and lines run through about 25 miles of canyon country with very few connected meters until it comes out on the high flatland of San Miguel Basin. It then runs up the San Miguel River past Uravan's mill, on out into the Paradox Valley, and Into the La Sal, Utah farming and mining area, a total distance of 115 miles from end to end. If anyone has any thought that the new frontier that is the Colorado Plateau may be too remote to be practical, he should take a trip to prosperous San Miguel Basin and to Nucla, then swing up the canyon to Uravan, where U. S. Vanadium Co., has several thousand people feverishly seeking out new uranium veins, hauling in the ore. and extracting the precious mineral day and night. The Uravan plant clusters from the San Miguel river bottom up a canyon wall for 450 feet and Its activities never stop. The mighty U. S. Vanadium Co. looks upon the Colorado Plateau, and particularly the Nucla-Natu-rita-Uravan areas, as having an unlimited future, which it assuredly will have as long es It can get sufficient electric power. Thus, the Nucla merchant, the Paradox Valley stockman and the Nucla grade school teacher are guiding the reins of a tremendously vital corporation an enterprise that is more directly concerned with the security and welfare of our country than anyone would even suppose nntil he has gone into that country and seen it for himself. That'i why the thousands of member-consumers of other Colorado rural electric rooperatlves hive one more reason to be proud of the free enterprise that enabled them Ut Join together to bring themselves electric power In this state. COLORADO 26 SAN MIGUEL THE SAN MIGUEL POWER ASSOCIATION, INC. A Rural Electrification Project NUCLA, COLORADO |
