Laserfiche WebLink
INTRODUCTION <br />Twentymile Coal Company proposes to build two water monitoring wells along the <br />western side of Twentymile Park east of Twentymile Coal Mine. Metcalf Archaeological <br />Consultants, Inc. (MAC) conducted a cultural resource inventory for the proposed 19 Right <br />Longwall and 22 Right Longwall, Routt County, Colorado (Figures I & 2). Access to the wells is <br />via a series of dirt/gravel roads that begin north of County Road 27 in section 23, T5N, R87W. <br />This road trends east and northeast along the western edge of Twentymile Park along the base of a <br />relatively steep side slope along the eastern edge of the Williams Fork Mountains through sections <br />13 and 24 T5S R87W, and Sections 18,17,9,8 and 7 of T5N R86W. After 3.1 miles atwo-track <br />departs this "main" road and proceeds east approximately 1.7mi to just south of 22 Right Longwall <br />well found in Section 9, T5N R86W. From this point 600ft of new road will be needed to gain <br />access to the well location. Access to the 19 Right Longwall well is off the same "main" road that <br />departs CR 27. After 2.5mi on the "main" road a two-track that serves a powerline heads off to <br />the east for 1.7mi to just south of the 19 Right Longwall well. All new access to this well location <br />is within the 200ft block inventoried for the well location, also in Section 9, T5N R86W. <br />A Class I files search was performed for the proposed project to check for previous <br />inventories and previously recorded sites. No significant amount of the current project falls <br />within any of the previous inventories. However, most of the 6.5mi of access is via roads that <br />have been at least mechanically bladed. These segments of road were not inventoried due to the <br />previous ground surface disturbance. The two well locations and 5700ft of undisturbed or new <br />access were inventoried with a Class III cultural resource survey. <br />Two hundred foot (60m) blocks were centered around the two well locations and were <br />inventoried with parallel pedestrian transects spaced no more than 50ft (20m) apart. Two sections <br />of unbladed road (A to B and C to D in Figure 1) totaling 5700ft (1740m) were surveyed to a total <br />corridor width of 100ft (50ft each side of the roads center). Five hundred feet of new access, for <br />the 22 Right Longwall well location was inventoried with a wedge covering 4.5 acres. This <br />resulted in a total of 19.5acres being Class III inventoried for this project on State of Colorado <br />lands. Small portions of the existing unsurveyed access roads are on private lands in Sections 23 <br />and 24 of T5N R87W, totaling about 1.8 acres. <br />This cultural resource inventory was mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act <br />of 1966 because the project is located on land administered by the State of Colorado Land <br />associated with the Sage Creek Mine development and falls under the mandates set forth by the <br />Division of Reclamation, Mining, and Safety (DRMS). Fieldwork was conducted on September <br />26th, 2013 by Sally Metcalf with Melissa Elkins acting as Project Manager and Kim Kintz as <br />Principal Investigator. All work was completed under the stipulations of Colorado Cultural <br />Resources permit CO-2013-70 (expires 02-28-14). <br />The inventory resulted in the discovery and documentation of one new prehistoric site <br />(5RT3256). 5RT3256 is recommended as "needs data" or "potentially eligible" to the National <br />Register of Historic Places (NRHP). No artifacts were collected during this project. <br />