SALT LAKE CITY – It has been four months since a massive landslide sent 165 million tons of rock tumbling into the Bingham Canyon Mine, and Kennecott officials said they are ahead of schedule when it comes to returning to pre-slide production levels.
Four of the gigantic dump trucks pushed around by the slide are back in use.
Kennecott Spokesman Kyle Bennett said there is still work to be done at the mine.
“We have to continue to move material on the benches to make sure those areas are safe to work on,” he said. “And one of the most critical things we can do in the future is to reestablish a primary access road to the bottom of the pit, so we can move ore and overburden in and out of that and heavy equipment from the bottom of the mine to the top of the mine.”
Kennecott laid off about 100 workers after the slide. They were poised to layoff more, but 130 employees accepted early retirement incentives, which made additional layoffs unnecessary.
