Holden Village hits the road
50-year-old ministry finds opportunity in environmental cleanup effort By Mary Koch
T Environmental cleanup Koch is
communications coordinator for Holden Village.
After decades of studies and debates, the federal government has decreed it time to clean up the mine site. Costing at least $100 million, it’s the largest remediation project within the national forest system, involving numerous governmental agencies, a Native American tribe and Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest mining corporations.
For Holden, the project could have spelled disaster. Over the next two years or more, hundreds of construc-
38 The Lutheran •
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owering, snowcapped mountains radi- ate morning sunlight as you snap on snowshoes for a winter hike in the North Cascade mountains of Washington. Crossing a footbridge, you gaze down at Railroad Creek, a clear mountain stream whose rocky bed shines strangely orange from residue left after decades of ore min- ing.
This is the paradox of Holden Village. A remote Lutheran retreat center on the
edge of Glacier Peaks Wilderness, Holden Village has operated for 50 years in the shadow of massive piles of tailings from an abandoned copper mine. The village—originally occupied by the miners—and mining residue share a narrow alpine valley on the Okanogan- Wenatchee National Forest.
Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center in Chelan, Wash., has operated for 50 years in the shadow of an abandoned copper mine. For the next two years, a $100 million remediation project means that construc- tion crews and equipment will share space with Holden in this valley of the Okanogan- Wenatchee National Forest.
tion workers and massive machinery will disrupt the peace of Railroad Creek Valley, leaving little or no room for the village’s summer programs and thousands of guests. The village will continue to welcome guests in late fall, winter and early spring. But in summer when remediation work is in full force, Holden will welcome volun- teer crews to work on its projects. Surprise has long been at the core of the Holden legacy, and disruption is bringing with it a number of pleasant surprises, say Stephanie and Chuck Carpenter, Holden’s wife-husband executive director team. “We’re trying to see all the opportuni- ties in this, and we see a theme of surpris- ing opportunities emerging over and over,” Chuck said. “The biggest surprise is the gift of God’s grace in our lives. This is just another kind of surprising gift and oppor- tunity that we are graced with.” He noted the opportunities to upgrade some of the village’s 75-year-old facili- ties and infrastructure, to extend Holden’s ministry to mine remediation workers and to reach out by putting the village’s
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