2014-07-15_REPORT - M1988044 - Laserfiche WebLink

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pit location was left nearly level. The surface of this backfill is not finished and will need to be configured in a compatible fashion to adjacent backfill areas. D. Deviation from original elevation for new backfilled land-Although the resulting land has a lower elevation than it formerly did, the configuration of the backfilled land is similar to and compatible with adjacent lands in a similar topographic setting with respect to drainage patterns and lesser erosional features. 3. Processing facilities- Nothing has changed here. 4. Access corridors- No change in access corridors. 5. New soil and overburden stockpiles- No changes occurred other than to add some material to the existing topsoil stockpiles and remove material from the overburden stockpile for backfilling. Locations are still the same as in previous years. RECLAMATION ACTIVITY IN THE LAST YEAR: 1. Climatic summary of previous year- The following four pages of graphs show the climatic patterns for 2012 and the first half of 2013. These data are for KDEN,the weather station at Denver International Airport (DIA). As has been previously determined, the Coal Creek site, on average tends to be somewhat cooler and wetter than DIA,but the overall pattern at DIA is largely applicable to the specific Coal Creek area. Past examinations showed that the stations surrounding Coal Creek(Bennett, Parker, and Cherry Creek Dam)were about 5 to 10 percent wetter and a couple of degrees cooler, on average, than DIA. However, consistency in the differences is often lacking on the annual scale with the three nearby stations showing more variation between themselves than the average of the three stations vary from DIA. Also, because recent records from those stations are often not continuous the data set itself for each station shows high variance. The 2013 set of graphs show that from June until early September precipitation was below normal and temperature was above average. Thus, the summer of 2013 was unusually dry and hot. Vegetation was undoubtedly stressed by the lack of moisture and the high temperatures and, in fact, grass dormancy set in a bit earlier than usual resulting in a fairly brown prairie through the summer. On September 10 this pattern very abruptly changed with higher than normal precipitation and normal to slightly below normal temperatures. September was also the month that Colorado experienced a huge flood event primarily to the northwest of this area. Nevertheless, Coal Creek ran high several times, but not nearly to the extent of streams and rivers that begin in the mountains. After September temperature rose back to somewhat higher than normal and precipitation declined back down to a pattern similar to the summer. Please look at the graphs for individual months rather than the annual graph to see this pattern. The annual graph tends to be cumulative and therefore the higher than normal precipitation in September carves Status report for 2014 due July 15, 2014 Page 5 of 10