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SCMRA is a comprehensive regulatory scheme focused on the prevention of <br />harm to the environment resulting from surface coal mining. In the enactment of <br />SCMRA the Colorado legislature declared its intent as follows: <br />"The purpose of this article is to assure that the coal required for local and <br />national energy needs for economic and social well being is provided and to <br />provide a balance among the protection of the environment, agricultural <br />productivity, and the need for coal as an essential source of energy. It is the <br />intent of the general assembly by the enactment of this article to allow for <br />the continued development of the surface coal mining operations of this <br />state, while requiring those persons involved ... to reclaim land affected by <br />such operations as contemporaneously as possible ... so that the affected land <br />may be put to a beneficial use. It is the further intent ... to protect society and <br />the environment from the adverse effects of surface coal mining operations, <br />[and] assure that the rights of surface landowners and other persons with a <br />legal interest in the land or appurtenances thereto are fully protected from <br />such operations." C.R.S. § 34 -33 -102 emphasis added. <br />Thus, the protection of the environment, agriculture, and the interests of surface <br />owners are squarely within the core purposes of SCMRA. <br />a Defining Prime Farmland Soils. <br />SCMRA has detailed procedural, operational, and reclamation requirements <br />for surface mining on lands which are characterized as having "prime farmland" <br />soils. The SCMRA definition of "prime farmland" incorporates the definition in <br />the Federal Surface Coal Mining Reclamation Act, 30 U.S.C. §§ 1201 et seq. See <br />C.R.S. § 34 -33- 103(22). Regulations promulgated under SCMRA define "prime <br />14 <br />