Helper • Nearly five years after it was closed amid a swamp of defaulted debt and safety violations, Carbon County’s Horizon coal mine remains dormant while state regulators and federal land managers struggle to get owner Hidden Splendor Resources to pay reclamation costs and unpaid royalties.
Prior to its abrupt closure in 2012, Horizon employed about 80 people tapping a 10-foot-thick seam of high-quality coal about 1,500 feet below the surface — while financial and regulatory problems dogged the operator and its corporate parent America West Resources, headquartered in Salt Lake City.
Eventually, the now-bankrupt operator lost its federal lease on the 16 million tons of coal that remained, due to its failure to pay the $8-a-ton royalty on its 2012 production.