JEFFERSON CITY - Thursday was a day of celebration at Montana Tunnels mine, which veered back from extinction in the past 17 months.

Approximately 150 guests were on hand to mark the occasion and tour the open pit mine and mill facility, which lies five miles west of Jefferson City.

"Twelve months ago, Montana Tunnels was down for the count," Tim Smith, vice president and general manager of Montana Tunnels Mining Inc., told the crowd. "We didn't know if we'd get going again."

The mine closed down pit operations in October 2005, when a series of rockslides caused safety hazards.

The mine staff dwindled, going from 208 employees to 95. They continued to mill piles of low-grade ore for metals.

However, by May 10, 2006, the mill closed down, with only a skeleton crew of 13 remaining.

On Thursday, the mine's roster had climbed back to 204 employees, approximately 80 percent of them rehires, Smith said.

Smith acknowledged the mine's boom-bust cycle had taken a toll on local families, local governments and suppliers.

He credited much of the Herculean effort of the re-opening to David Russell, president and CEO of the parent company, Apollo Gold, who searched across the globe for investors.

In August, Apollo Gold formed a joint venture agreement with Elkhorn Tunnels, an affiliate of Calim Private Equity of Colorado.

It took about $15 million to complete the repairs and re-open.

However, this is just a fraction of the cost of creating a new, comparable mine, which would take $180 million, Smith said.

Repairs required laying back a portion of the pit wall to make it less steep, moving more than 8 million tons of rock and reconstructing the access ramp to the bottom of the pit.

Meanwhile, no money was coming until the mine re-opened March 1.

In 2007, Montana Tunnels will mine 4.46 million tons of ore.

Next year, during a full year of operation, it expects to mine 5.3 million tons of ore, Smith said, during a follow-up interview.

Montana Tunnels expects revenues of at least $87 million this year, which Smith credits to record high metal prices.

Gold is currently at $650 to $660 per ounce, more than twice the price it was five years ago.

The mine's other metals have climbed in price, as well.

Silver is bringing $13 per ounce; lead, 85 cents per pound; and zinc, $1.50 per pound - all of which are three to four times the price they were five years ago.

As the mine booms, the local economy is buoyed as well.

The mine's payroll is $15 million and offers an average annual salary of $45,000.

And the mine purchases $22 million in goods across Montana, according to Smith.

In Jefferson County, it was the third largest taxpayer in 2006. It pays $800,000 in county taxes, annually.

The mine also pays $700,000 annually in state taxes.

Visitors on Thursday got a brief but fascinating glimpse of what happens in the 24/7 operations of the mine and mill.

The mine, lies in an ancient volcano, that was active 50 million years ago, according to a Montana Tunnels' publication.

The mine is part of an historically rich mining district that once stretched to the nearby communities of Corbin and Wickes.

At its mining height in the 1880s through 1900, the vicinity housed a population of 2,000, according to a the publication.

The district also had as many as three smelters.

The Montana Tunnels name dates back to the late 1800s when prospectors dug two adits in the area of the current mine.

"The name stuck," said Smith, even though the current mine is open pit.

From the tour bus, visitors peered into the bottom of the pit, where building-sized equipment looked more like Tonka toys.

From the nearby rim, the pit measures about 1,400 feet deep, said mine environmental manager John Schaefer.

To remove the ore, blast holes are drilled 22 feet deep into the core of ore at the bottom of the pit, said Smith.

They are then filled with explosives.

The explosions are set off between shifts, when no workers are in the pit, Schaefer said.

Shavings or cuttings from each of these blasted areas is assayed to determine whether it is ore or waste rock, Smith said.

The information feeds into a computer that issues a map provided to the shovel operator, who can then identify the piles of ore from the waste rock.

The shovel loads the ore and waste rock into separate, huge trucks that can each carry 150 tons of material.

A carefully spaced caravan of 19 of these behemoths winds up and down the access ramp in a fairly continuous progression, most of the 24 hours of the mine's operation, said Smith.

From the rim of the pit, visitors can also see a bluish lake, the tailings basin, where water is fitered for reuse in the mine, according to the mine's publication.

About 80 percent of the water used by the mine comes from recyling, said Smith.

Back at the mill, the mine visitors are surrounded by a din of mechanical noises as they meander their way up metal staircases and along metal grid walkways, where they are dwarfed by the towering equipment.

Here the ore is crushed until it is 8 inches in diameter and smaller, Smith said.

It's then fed into a SAG mill and ball mill, where it is ground to a texture of talcum powder.

Another piece of equipment, a gravity separator, separates out gold nuggets.

The nuggets are transferred to another part of the mine complex, where they are refined and transformed into bullion bars.

The gold operation wasn't part of Thursday's tour.

The rest of the ground ore material mixes with water and chemical reagents, which separate the zinc and lead from nonmineral materials, Smith said.

The ore mix goes into a separate series of large bubbling vats during the flotation process.

A set of grey-brown vats contains the lead mixture.

And vats of reddish, purple, brown liquid contain the zinc.

The bubbly froth is mechanically skimmed off the top.

It is then thickened and filtered. Both the lead and zinc are dried to a fine powder that is about 8 percent moisture, Smith said.

Dump trucks haul the fine mineral powder to rail cars, which are shipped to a smelter in Canada.

During smelting, silver and gold are separated from the lead and zinc powders, Smith said.

The mill processes 650 tons of ore per hour, and 15,000 tons of ore per day, he said.

The mine is completing an environmental impact statement with the Department of Environmental Quality to expand mine operations, said Schaefer.

If successful, the expansion of the M Pit will take mining operations into 2013.

Smith is optimistic the mine will get the necessary permits by the end of the year. "We've had an impeccable environmental record in the 20 years of operation," he said.

Warren McCullough of DEQ concurs. "It's a cleaner open pit mine," he said, compared to Golden Sunlight near Whitehall or Montana Resources in Butte.

Much of this is due to the geology of the formation. The rock doesn't produce acid mine drainage, which is a major environmental problem at other open pit mines, he said.

During the EIS process, DEQ will verify the pit water will be OK," McCullough said.

Previous tests showed the pit water met water quality standards, however these standards are subject to change, he said.

The mine's reclamation efforts have also been successful, said Schaefer, pointing to areas around the pit, where rock and soil were replaced and re-seeded to native plants.

Eventually, the pit will be filled with water and become a lake that will support aquatic life, Schaefer said.

However, Jefferson County residents shouldn't load up their power boats and canoes anytime soon.

It will take at least 180 years to fill, said Schaefer.