Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 33

Wednesday, August 26, 198133 He no Evening Gazette Bus ASTROGRAPH .....50 CLASSIFIED 41-51 COMICS 40 CROSSWORD 49 MARKETS 34,35 mess Speculating on Ely's pottemittnal CHERRY CHEEK? lPRESTON 1 1 MM I I EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth story in a series about the changing economy in Nevada's rural communities. The family, with deep roots in the county, was forced to leave because of the Kennecott closing. They've spent the last year in Gillette, a Wyoming boomtown. Myron was one of 40 workers recently called back for some renovation work at Kennecott's smelter in McGill. "My husband's 33 years old and had eight years with the company.

We had to come back to get into retirement (benefits)," she said. "Hopefully, it will be for a long time, but he had to come." "The thing is we never know from one day to the next. This is home and we'd hate to leave," she said. The power plant project would be a godsend, she said. "It would put a lot of guys back to work," she said.

But director Alexander Forbes, of White Pine County Development an agency set up to attract business to the county's new industrial park, isn't so sure all of the great projects will take place. "Right now we're operating on a false economy. Everybody thinks there is good times, when in reality, we don't know." For starters, he questions whether the proposed two or three coal-fired power plants will be built. He's not so sure the federal government will be satisfied with the environmental impact report results. Mining, as always, is a boom-or-bust business, he said.

The results of oil exploration work also remains to be seen, especially as most of the big rigs were relocated to new finds in Wyoming. As one might expect, filling the industrial work with a variety of small, clean businesses will work to stabilize the economy, he said. But efforts are hampered because of the shortage of good housing. Land also is at a premium, with the ribbon-shaped town, nestled among hills and a mountain, not having too much room to grow. Bourn agreed obtaining an Environmental Protection Agency permit is the biggest obstacle to building the plants.

Particulates from the smokestacks must By SUSAN VOYLES Gazette staff writer ELY Take a walk down main street and open up your ears: Here comes Margaret Bath, who with husband Tom and other family members, have just decided to build a new lumber store. "We believe growth is coming," is Margaret's motto. A few steps more and we happen to meet Lee Bige-low, an architect from Salt Lake City. Just one day here and he decided to open a branch office. No competition is one attraction, another is Ely's potential, he said.

Just what potential? "Nothing in particular but everything in general." Moving on, White Pine County's new chamber of commerce building is going up. Membership has grown 36 percent since Kennecott closed its copper mine in 1976, and it's only the second chamber in the country to receive a loan from the Farmers Home Administration. "When the community closes down, the chamber is needed even more," director Betty C. Whitehurst said of her membership. The few closed storefronts downtown are not a sign of bad times, but rather a sign of landlords wanting too much money for rent, she said.

One might say speculation fever has replaced the blues in good old Ely town. The Hotel Nevada, perhaps the landmark in a town known for its hospitality, will have a completely new look after remodeling starts next month, said co-owner Janet Sanderson, a Fallon native who took over in January with her husband Robert. "If the MX comes in, Ely is going to be a gold mine," she said. And if no MX crosses Nevada's path, she's confident oil exploration and the new gold mines will pay off. Ely, which once hit an unemployment rate of 23 percent when the mine was being closed, now sits comfortably with a 5.7 percent rate, that's 2 percent below Carson City's and only 0.7 percent more than Reno's, according to local officials.

Of course, unemployment rates don't stay high for long in a small town, said Mike Bourn, White Pine County Power Plant Project coordinator. Those without jobs have to move on, sometime severing close ties among extended families. White Pine population hit a peak of 11,500 when the copper mine was in its heyday in 1974. It dropped to 7,600 late 1978 after the mine closed and now rests between 8,500 to 9,000, Bourn said. But happier days may be coming.

Oil exploration work and related services now employ several hundred in the county, according to several officials. Thousands could be employed if oil is discovered in sufficient quantities, a top oil official told residents in June. And mining has made a comeback. Silver King Mines Inc. opened what officials described as the state's largest silver mine this spring, and Amselco's Alligator Ridge Gold Mine, the first large-scale gold mine in the county in decades, opened in June.

It employs 140 workers. As 1980 ended, 470 workers were employed at 22 mines in the county, the latest state figures show. Right now we 're operating on a false economy Gazette photos by Doug McMillan Kennecott Mineral smelter in McGill is still in operation. That's way up from 210 in 1979, but far below 970 in the Kennecott days of 1975. The final leg in this triad of industry is the White Pine County Power Plant Project.

The plant eventually will employ 525 permanent workers, but promises to make Ely a boomtown all by itself during the construction phase. If plans proceed as scheduled, and so far Bourn be below established limits, even though the particles would fall on mountaintops where nobody lives. "That doesn't matter to the EPA or Congress," he said. One of eight proposed sites will be selected this September. Plant output, enough to supply a million homes with electricity, will be shared by 14 utilities, eight in Nevada and six in Southern California.

Another obstacle, more difficult to define, is what shape the financial market will take when construction bonds are expected to be offered in 1985, he said. Perhaps the unique thing about the project is that White Pine County went after it. Bourn said he is aware of no other community that sought one. But most communities don't have a history of being company towns. "This will diversify the economy so that it can't happen again," Bourn said of the chaos after the Kennecott mine closing.

For now, Bourn described Ely's economy as stable. "Most people aren't doing poorly or doing good. But people no longer feel so threatened that they're going to lose their businesses. That's the situation we were in in 1979," he said. That was when federal trade adjustment money, representing 80-85 percent of miners' former wages, ran out, he said.

Burrell Bybee, owner of the Copper Queen Motel Please see SPECULATING, P. 34 says they are, the digging would start in 1985. The $3.5 billion project would employ a peak of 1,800 to 2,200 construction workers. With families and others, the influx would mean 5,000 to 6,000 people. Hardly anyone has anything good to say about the MX missile project.

Whitehurst said White Pine County didn't have $200,000 to take to Washington, D.C. to lobby for the project base like Clark County did. "We get all the guns and they're getting the base. They ought to take the guns to Clark County, too," she said. She's so mad about it she thinks the state ought to secede from Clark County.

But most local people could care less about getting any part of MX. "The MX is something people generally are interested in seeing evaporate," Bourn said. "It would have a pretty severe impact during construction but no long-term benefits would be realized a boom-bust situation." The state estimates MX-related population would range between 54,000 and 68,000. And Ely would be right in the midst of the explosion. "I think we can stand a few more people.

We don't want 50,000, but 15,000 to 20,000 wouldn't hurt us at all," said one Kennecott mine worker. Several others interviewed also said "no" to MX but welcomed the stability the power plant would bring. "We like Ely the way it is, but we have to have some sort of growth," said Mark Budak, who now works for a construction company after 33 years in the Kennecott mine. But it seems growth or no growth is debatable only when there is food on the table. Julie Wise, who returned to Ely with her husband Myron and baby, said the MX may be a good thing.

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