UPDATE: A Murray Energy official said Saturday, August 4, the company has no current plans to re-open the Crandall Canyon Mine, despite a report Friday citing a Bureau of Land Management official who said the company had expressed interest in re-opening at a future, unspecified time. Murray Energy Corp. Vice President Rob Murray denied such plans in an email Saturday.

EMERY COUNTY — Monday marks the five-year anniversary of the first collapse at the Crandall Canyon mine that killed six miners. A second cave-in claimed the lives of three rescuers.

Half a decade later, the memories remain fresh for those involved, but the anniversary is being marked even as the owner may be making quiet plans to reopen the mine in the future.

Mitch Horton was a rescuer who escaped the second collapse. For him, the horror remains a part of everyday life.

"I get panic attacks all the time. I deal with depression all the time," Horton said.

"I will never come back to that evil mountain that is still alive," said mine boss Bob Murray at the time of the tragedy.

Five years later, Murray's booming voice has gone quiet, though the company remains active behind the scenes. Roger Bankert, minerals support supervisor with the Bureau of Land Management told KSL that Murray Energy is maintaining the mine's lease and has expressed interest in mining on the property in the future.

According to regulation, to maintain that lease without active drilling, the company has to pay $3 per acre for the land each year, plus 1 percent in advance royalties per year, royalties which reflect what the company thinks it will be able to mine in the future. That royalties number is proprietary to the company and can't be disclosed, but the lease is for 3,517 acres, which amounts to $10,551 per year.

Murray Energy essentially has 20 years from the time of the closure to either act on the lease or relinquish it. If the lease is relinquished and not sold, the Division of Oil, Gas and Mining co-program manager Daron Haddock said the state is potentially interested in reclamation, which would return the land roughly to its pristine state at the company's expense.

Coming up:

Sunday night on KSL TV

Families of the victims killed in Crandall Canyon settled a lawsuit years ago, but one lawsuit remains. Coming up Sunday night after the Olympics one of the rescuers injured in the second collapse shares his story and relieves those horrifying moments before and after.

Bankert said the state is in communication with the company regularly because it owns three other mines in Utah. The last time they spoke to the company was three or four months ago.

Murray Energy says it has no comment at this time. No timetable or date has been given as to when the mine would reopen if it opened at all.

Haddock said there are obvious reasons why reopening the mine may be a tough, even controversial choice.

"Basically it's a grave," Haddock said.

The economics don't currently support it with the price of coal dropping.

"Basically it'd be a tremendous amount of roof control," Haddock said. "It would be very expensive to try to go in and reopen that mine."

At the newly created Center for Mining Safety and Health Excellence at the University of Utah, researcher Mike Nelson says the Crandall Canyon Mine tragedy is a driving motivator for his colleagues.

"People are still thinking about what happened there and why," Nelson said.

"We can look back and see there are things that could have been done differently."

The center is hoping to raise up a new era of industry leaders who listen to what miners are telling them while improving incident management and technology.

"Maybe doing that we can anticipate when problems are coming," Nelson said.

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