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State officials will wait until next week before they bar entrances to old mines in the Tesla ghost town west of Tracy.
 Abandoned sand mine in Tesla, between Tracy and Livermore.
Despite a ban
on trespassers, outlaw hikers venture into the hilly enclave, dangerously
riddled with sinkholes and collapsing mines abandoned for nearly 100 years.
“There’s plenty
of evidence that people have been here,” said Don Drysdale, spokesman for the
California Department of Conservation. “Someone actually tried to set a mine’s
wood frame on fire, there’s graffiti (and) there are beer cans scattered about.
It’s pretty fresh proof that people frequent the area.”
The two gates
the state plans to place next week cost $12,800 to install and “they look a lot
like prison bars,” Drysdale said, “they keep people out and the bats in.”
Several bats
sighted around Livermore and Tracy, and that park rangers believe roost in the
mine include the Hoary Bat and the Western Red Bat.
The Tesla mines
have been abandoned since 1911 — just 21 years after a millionaire opened them
in 1890 to ship coal and sand to Stockton.
“They’re old
mines, and half of them need to be closed up,” Drysdale said.
Already, mine
reclamation workers have fenced off the more dangerous entrances, and plan to
cover about 20 more before opening the park to the public. Park rangers
estimate that about 10 of those mines are collapsed.
Contractors
need three days of clear weather to install the gates. This week’s installation
was cancelled because of impending winter rainstorms.
State parks
acquired the Tesla-Corral Hollow property in 1998 and incorporated it with the
Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area.
Once the mines
are safely cordoned off, the park will open for public use. But state rangers
are still unsure about how soon it could open.
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