California Gulch NRDAR Canterbury Tunnel Restoration

Background information. The original Canterbury Tunnel began as an idea in 1922 as a way to remove excess water in the mines that honeycomb the mountains near Leadville, Colorado. The objective of reducing the volume of water in these mines was to increase the opportunity for ore extraction. The project’s original plans were never fully realized because of technological limitations and increasingly dangerous conditions that confronted workers, and so the 4,000-foot-long Canterbury Tunnel sat dormant until the early 1960s. Historically, Leadville relied on the nearby Big Evans Reservoir as the primary source of municipal water. The reservoir’s elevation of 10,200 feet above sea level has been particularly problematic for Leadville during [...]