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the coal either to regional consumers or to the Southfield loadout located <br />near Florence. At the loadout, coal is transferred from temporary <br />stockpiles to rail cars by front end loaders for transportation to coal <br />consumers. <br />Coarse and fine refuse from the coal preparation plant are transported by <br />rear dump haulage trucks to an existing permanent coal refuse stockpile <br />where they are placed and graded. As construction of the coal refuse <br />stockpile progresses, completed stockpile areas are topsoiled and <br />revegetated to establish productive, self-sustaining vegetative cover <br />consistent with planned post-mining land uses. <br />Due to coal market conditions, EFCI cannot predict future coal sales and <br />production levels with any significant degree of certainty. However, to <br />date, EFCI's marketing efforts have been successful in maintaining <br />consistent demand for mine production capacity of approximately 550,000 <br />• clean tons of coal per year. This production level is constrained by <br />existing available mining equipment, the blending considerations <br />previously described, and capacity and recovery efficiency of the coal <br />preparation plant. <br />With the proposed expansion areas included in this permit revision <br />application, EFCI has total remaining minable reserves of approximately <br />4.5 million tons. With consideration of blending requirements this <br />reserve base translates into an additional 7.5 years of mine life. <br />EFCI has identified additional potential reserves to the north which may <br />further extend the life of existing mining operations. Exploration and <br />evaluation of these reserves is currently ongoing. Based upon the results <br />of this work, EFCI may at some future point revise the permit to <br />incorporate the additional reserves and extend the life of proposed mining <br />and reclamation operations. EFCI is also attempting to quantify the <br />extent, quality, and reserve base of other minable coal seams in the area <br />. which have not been affected by previous mining operations and which may <br />2.05-7 <br />