NEDERLAND - “This whole process for me started out very personal,” Maggi Hendricks said in an interview with The Mountain-Ear. “The way that these people had treated my father, people who didn’t have the sovereignty and respect for the mine that my father had, I felt in my gut that there wasn’t something right.

“I sit now in a place of full conviction that this shouldn’t go through and with genuine concern for the environment.”

Hendricks’ interview

The name of Maggi’s father, Tom Hendricks, gets used often, as his spirit is evoked whenever current operations at the Caribou and Cross Mines are judged based on his legendary standards, whether by locals who trusted him, family who love him, or friends and mentees who hope to honor him. 

Though much of the hurt experienced by the Hendricks family following his death in 2020 has yet to heal, Maggi has found clarity from the ongoing healing process. 

“I feel a lot more peace within myself and it’s not as personal and mushy anymore,” she said.

Maggi describes her view of how Grand Island Resources (GIR) mistreated her father when he was their acting president, painting the picture of a man with cancer and a newborn baby, working every day without getting paid. 

She refrained from lingering too long on certain subjects, choosing instead happier memories to dive into. 

“I remember one time I went out into our garden and he was like watching bees on the flowers for 25 minutes,” Maggi laughed. “That’s just who he was. He loved nature and he really loved people.”

Despite these “mushy” distractions, Maggi came to her interview with a purpose and she dutifully remained on task. 

“The truth of the matter is, if the right people were up there who I felt were qualified to be doing this work with the same integrity, I would be happy that his legacy was being fulfilled.”

Community response

At the time of Maggi’s interview, the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining, and Safety (DRMS)—along with many individuals, businesses, and local agencies—had responded to GIR’s application for Designated Mining Operation (DMO) status.  

Though the period for submitting public comment on the DMO application was from February 20, 2025 to March 12, letters, emails, and forms from the DRMS website objecting to the application have continued to come in as recently as August 28.

Included in the over 500 objections is the Town of Nederland’s letter of concern, which indicates “regional concerns” in regards to the issue of runoff traveling from the mine site to Coon Track Creek, into North Beaver Creek, into Middle Boulder Creek, then into Barker Reservoir. 

The City of Boulder, in their letter of opposition, wrote: “The mining operations and associated discharges are located directly upstream from Boulder's intakes on North Boulder Creek and Barker Reservoir, which provide two-thirds of the City's drinking water.”

“GIR's proposal to conduct underground mining, stoping, drilling, blasting, groundwater dewatering, and mine wastewater treatment present significant threats to the hydrologic balance and ground and surface water quality,” the letter stated.

“In the words of DRMS, [there are] ‘124 questions for clarification, inadequacies, inaccurate and disingenuous documents, antiquated data, and overall incomplete permit application points,’” Maggi Hendricks said during her interview, putting emphasis on the number. 

Hendricks cited DRMS’s concerns regarding GIR’s lack of analysis on the impact of blasting, lack of a dewatering plan, of a groundwater flow model, and their directive to GIR to have the proposed environmental protection plan completely rewritten. 

“To me this shows that they have zero idea of how they are going to protect the environment,” Hendricks said. 

The company responds

“There’s a misconception that because we’re a corporation that my personal values are out the window, and that just cannot be further from the truth,” Tawana Bain, CEO and Chairwoman of American Clean Resources Group (ACRG), said in an interview with The Mountain-Ear, describing her past—working in stream restoration, caring for the sustainability of watershed vegetation, fish, and other wildlife.

In addition to its promises of advanced energy solutions and responsible mineral processing, Bain mentioned that ACRG would be able to provide job opportunities and infrastructure improvements, as well as some more outside-the-box ideas, including allowing backcountry skiers certain access to their land, and bringing back the historic Miner’s Days event.

“Trails. Cookouts. Rebuilding Caribou; the sky is the limit of what can be done so long as we’re all willing to be cooperative.” 

Bain also addressed allegations of GIR operating in a shadowy manner, particularly in regards to its legal standing and its authority to conduct business in the state of Colorado. 

In their letter of opposition, the City of Boulder inquired whether GIR’s Statement of Foreign Entity was still valid in Colorado.

GIR lost its Certificate of Good Standing in the State of Wyoming (where GIR is registered) due to a delinquency in its filings. 

“I was not happy when I read that GIR’s registration with the Secretary of State had expired in Wyoming. I am happy to say that as of today that has been rectified and has been addressed,” Bain said during her interview.

She then offered that short-staffing at the mines created an issue and the registration fell through the cracks.

GIR, and those who serve, or have served, as senior management within the company, mainly Richard Mittasch and Alfred F. Gerriets II, have all faced scrutiny as a result of the seemingly clandestine nature of GIR’s inception, and to the ongoing legal battles fought by the company brass. 

Corporation history

On April 22, 2020, the State of Colorado received a Cross Mine Succession of Operator application, indicating that GIR would succeed Calais Resources Colorado, Inc. in holding claim over the mines. Both companies had Mittasch listed as the main contact. 

This practice, continuously forming new entities, is typically performed for tax purposes, sometimes to separate particular high-risk operations to save the parent company from liability and to protect profitable operations from risky new ventures.

This could explain the formation of Nederland Mining Consultants, Inc. (NMC), GIR, and possibly ACRG as well. 

There is also the opinion, shared by Maggi Hendricks and some Nederland community members, that ACRG exists with Bain at the helm because of her partner’s (Mittasch) reputation and questionable standing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

In 2011, Mittasch received a permanent bar of all registration capacities by the SEC due to violations of the Exchange Act and Rule 10B-5, and violations of the Advisors Act.

One year prior, Mittasch earned a civil injunctive action from the SEC due to being part of a $34 million hedge fund fraud that affected investors in the U.S. and Canada. 

Mittasch and GIR were also named in a 2024 lawsuit from United Rentals Inc. of North America for a Breach of Contract.

GIR, NMC, and Gerriets—along with Standard Metals Processing, Inc. and Sustainable Metal Solutions LLC (SMS)—were named in a 2024 lawsuit by Don McCoy regarding labor standards and the Fair Labor Standards Act.   

And in 2023, a Business Governance and Securities case was filed by Michael Markiewicz against Bain, Gerriets, Derby Diversity Summit LLC, and SMS. The case was dismissed. 

Health and Safety Director speaks

“In general, I’ve been treated with honesty and respect,” Health and Safety Director and General Mine Foreman Riley McCallister told The Mountain-Ear about being employed at GIR. “I have a pretty strong opinion on how to treat the environment and how to treat people and I stand behind them fully.” 

McCallister was raised in Evergreen and moved to Nederland six years ago; he is from the new generation of Nederland miners, and one of the few GIR employees still toiling up at the mines.

Having learned the ropes from Tom Hendricks himself seven years ago, McCallister’s passion for mining is ever-present in how he describes his work and shares stories of the history of the Caribou and Cross Mines. 

His position places him in charge of employee training and safety planning for all operations, and he is responsible for ensuring that the mines meet all state and federal requirements. McCallister’s main purpose is to have his fellow crew members return home at the end of their shifts either in the same or better condition than when they came in. 

“In our modern day state we don’t mine anymore. We’re not using the harmful chemicals, the cyanide, the heat bleach, the mercury. We’ve modernized things, it’s a lot more efficient, a lot cleaner, and contained.”

McCallister explained that of the 2,300 or so acres owned by GIR—on which about 1200 uncontained mines exist—his crew is only permitted to “move dirt” on just nine acres. The request for an expansion to their permit area therefore exists to avoid having to apply for a special use permit every time GIR wants to clean a nearby mine.

“I open up an opportunity for anyone who would like to come up and see what we’re doing, I will personally show them around,” McCallister said.

A trip to the mine

A trip to the Caribou and Cross Mine is truly a remarkable experience. McCallister’s reverence for the profession only helps to accentuate the impact of getting suited up, turning the headlamp on, and heading into utter darkness. 

Small details make the experience that much bigger, such as Margaux Hemingway’s signature and personal message to the miners that hangs right by the equipment room door.

Other details help bring the realities of the job to life, such as the numbered tokens that miners must carry with them into the mines, so that foremen could monitor the board and notice which tokens were missing from their pegs, indicating that a crew member was lost or stuck in the tunnels.

On worker safety  

In the summer of 2021, GIR hired Marissa Dwyer as a geotechnician. She began by splitting core samples from their above-ground drilling operation. Soon after, GIR shifted gears and began having the core samples crushed, presumably to save money on shipping costs.

The operation consisted of Dwyer and others using machinery to crush the samples into a fine dust within a small room.   

“When you do that it produces a lot of silica dust,” Dwyer explained in an interview with The Mountain-Ear. “So they had this ventilation system that they had put in by someone who worked there.

“It was designed where you would have one fan open all the time that was meant to suck up all the dust, but it didn’t really work, so the dust would just cloud up in that small room.”

Instead of addressing the issue, Dwyer said, floor fans were set up that would blow the silica dust into the adjacent parking lot, and out onto Caribou Road. 

Silica dust is a carcinogen that has been linked to certain lung diseases, including lung cancer and silicosis, in cases of prolonged or excessive exposure. The risks of disease and of permanent lung damage depends on many factors, including the size of the dust particles and the percentage of crystalline silica within the dust. 

“They had a dust collector hooked up to the system and I decided to go look at it and it said right on it ‘For wood dust only. Do not use for silica dust.’” Dwyer detailed how, after notifying her supervisors of the issue, she was moved to another project: cataloguing Tom Hendricks’s old maps. 

After a month she was told that her position had been eliminated, which came of little surprise to Dwyer, as her direct supervisor had accidentally sent her text messages indicating that Dwyer could be fired without explanation due to Colorado being an at-will employment state.  

“I think a lot of people are scared of them in a way,” Dwyer said when asked if any fellow employees spoke up, “and we were in employee housing. When they fired me they gave me five days to move out. A lot of people don’t want to lose both their job and their housing at the same time.”

This experience ruined both Dwyer’s burgeoning mining career and her time in Nederland, as she was unable to find housing and eventually had to move out of state. 

Dwyer provided videos of the small room, the ventilation system, fans, and dust collector. She recounted speaking with two supervisors, though she was unsure of their names.

McCallister was mentioned, but only in the context that she knew of him, and he was not implicated in this issue. 

The Mountain-Ear reached out to both McCallister and Bain regarding this matter. At the time of publication Bain has not responded. McCallister responded to The Mountain-Ear's request for comment after publication. 

McCallister stated, "The claims made by the former employee are wholly inaccurate and misleading. To clarify:

 • Training & Certification: Every single employee at the site was fully trained and certified through MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration). In addition, all employees who operated the crushing unit were certified under official MSHA documentation filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Suggesting that individuals were untrained is categorically false.

 • Ventilation & Safety Measures: The crushing unit operated with ventilation systems that met MSHA standards. These systems were reviewed and certified as compliant.

 • Regulatory Record: The mine has maintained a perfect MSHA compliance record over the past three and a half years — with no violations cited.

 • Employee Credibility: The individual making these allegations had documented performance issues and struggled to work collaboratively with colleagues. Their characterization of events is inconsistent with the experience of our team and our compliance history.

 • Leadership & Oversight: The project was overseen by a geologist with more than 50 years of professional experience. We also maintained a partnership with the Colorado School of Mines through a student work program, further ensuring a culture of professionalism, accountability, and adherence to best practices.

We stand by the record: this operation was conducted in full compliance with safety and training requirements, and any suggestion otherwise is not supported by fact. If you wish to speak directly with current employees who can share their first-hand experiences working under these standards, we would be glad to facilitate introductions. We invite you back up to see our training program and the crushing room that was mentioned. Thank you again for your time."

Where things are now 

 This story, spanning over a century and a half, is not yet over. The fate of the Caribou and Cross Mines remains to be written, as DRMS has yet to schedule the public hearing regarding the final vote on the DMO application. 

ACRG continues work on finalizing the succession over GIR and on acquiring the mines, predicated on the success or failure of the pending DMO application.

On August 26, ACRG filed a Form 10-K with the SEC, providing them a summary of their financial performance and their goals, primarily for their Tonopah property in Nevada.

In addition to explaining their delinquent filings in the State of Wyoming, it stated their intention to perform “permitted custom processing toll milling,” which is the crushing operation described by Dwyer. 

Listed under “Risk Factors,” ACRG states that it does not have enough cash to fund operations or reduce debt, does expect to incur losses for the foreseeable future, does not have a lot of assets, and has roadblocks in the form of deeds and pledges on the assets it does have.      

“We have not generated revenue from our toll milling services to date and there can be no assurance that our plans for permitted custom processing toll milling will be successful,” ACRG wrote. 

“We have had net losses for each of the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, and we have an accumulated  deficit as of December 31, 2024, of $113,553,937. Virtually all of the Company’s assets are encumbered or pledged under senior secured debt that is in default. These conditions raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.

“In the event we are unable to obtain additional capital, we may be forced to cease our search for additional business opportunities, reduce our operating expenditures or to cease operations altogether.” 

There is no indication as to how this information will affect ACRG’s attempted operations at the Caribou and Cross Mines, just as there is no guarantee that ACRG or GIR or NMC or Calais will be the last iteration of companies seeking control over Tom Hendricks’ holy land. 

As for whether the Town of Nederland is truly done with mining and ready to put to bed the industry that raised it…only time will tell.