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of Grand Junction (Mesa County) and Pagosa Springs (Archuleta <br />County) . <br />Land ownership of the sites was almost exclusively private. <br />The exceptions to this were two closely located sites in Delta <br />County in the Gunnison National Forest. No sites were identified <br />on state lands. <br />The volume of peat extracted from Colorado annually is <br />estimated to be 102,060 cu yds. The maximum and minimum <br />extracted by a single operator were 45,000 and 60 cu yds, <br />respectively. The total is equivalent to 51,030 tons. This <br />estimate is more than three times the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) <br />1988 estimate of 28,000 cu yds, or 14,000 tons, and only 2000 <br />tons below the USBM's estimate for fourth - ranked Indiana <br />(production = 53,000 tons per year). The reason the two <br />estimates differ is because the USBM was able to include only <br />four of the sixteen operators now known to be active in Colorado. <br />The volume of peat these additional operators extract could <br />change Colorado's rank for annual peat extraction from fifth <br />largest to fourth largest, although the certainty of this change <br />in ranking is not known. <br />It is uncertain how many acres are actually affected in the <br />excavation of this amount annually. At present the total area <br />directly affected by peat extraction (as identified in this <br />study) is approximately 200 to 500 acres. The total area <br />affected both directly and indirectly could be as high as several <br />thousand. <br />0 27 <br />