2014-02-28_REPORT - C1996083 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Notes for site visit February 24, 2014: I arrived on site around noon. It was raining and foggy when I arrived, the site was wet and muddy. The ruts noted in the haul road in my last report have been patched with gravel. A more permanent fix is still planned during the longwall move, but for the short term, the road surface has improved. Gob Pile #3 is muddy, and wet. There are three areas of the pile that were inspected. 1) The permitted drying area, 2) the center of the active pile which consists of a portion of the permitted drying area and a portion of the permitted active placement and compaction area (see Volume XI page 4b), and 3) The area of concern noted in DRMS' aerial inspection dated February 26, 2014. In the permitted drying area, the ground has started to thaw. There is some evidence of the gob starting to drain and a few places with standing water, but the drying area has not changed substantially in volume or layout since December. Drainage ditches were cut in January, but other than those ditches, the pile has for the most part been left idle since December. However, new gob was being dumped in the northern most portion of the drying area. The center of the active pile looks good. The ground is level, has been compacted and there is no standing water. This will be the location where rows of new gob will be placed and allowed to drain over the remaining winter months. The eastern edge of the active gob area, as noted by DRMS' inspection, has a few spots with standing water. What wasn't clear in the aerial photos provided by DRMS was that ditches had been cut along the western edge of the area, and water was actively flowing during my inspection. There are low areas where water was ponding, but the Operator was making every effort to get the water to drain into drainage channels. The plan for this portion of the pile is to cut lateral drains into the gob and tie those drains into the existing drainage channel. The intent, weather allowing, is to create windrow type piles of the end dumped gob. These piles will be peaked so that they will shed water into the lateral drains which tie into the main drainage channel. Overall, gob pile #3 looked better than it did in the DRMS' aerial photos. Only the east area needs to be cleaned up and work has already begun on that effort. Next, we walked the coal stockpile on the D- Bench. At this time, there is a substantial amount of coal in stockpile. Based on our field inspection, the coal is within the disturbed area boundary. I compared photos taken in the field with the disturbed area boundary shown on the map, and looked at some old DRMS aerial photos. The tree line was used on drawings to create the boundary between the disturbed and undisturbed ground. It looked like in past years the boundary could have been exceeded in one or two spots, but as a whole, the current coal pile is within the tree line delineation.