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landowner and allows water extraction up to 2.0 cfs. The gold operation has used this source in the past <br />mining and processing activities. <br />Section 3. South Platte River and F000dplain <br />Upstream from the site, the Middle Fork of the South Platte River drains an area of approximately 48 <br />square miles. This area has wet meadows in the floodplain, evergreen wooded sideslopes up to <br />timberline and a substantial amount of land above timberline consisting of high altitude grasses and <br />forbs among a significant amount of rocks with lichens. A number of lode gold mines existed in the <br />basin, of which the Magnolia, Dollie Varden, Paris and Russia mines were the most famous. Much of <br />the upstream basin is extremely steep, with 4 - 1400 feet high mountains in the area - Mt. Bross, Mt. <br />Democrat, Mt. Lincoln and Mt. Cameron. Mosquito Gulch, which is a major stream draining the area <br />west of the site, enters the Middle Fork contains The London Mine, Hock Hocking and other notable <br />mines. <br />Water quality from the closest USGS gage (6693980), which is located immediately north of Fairplay <br />and 3 miles south of the minesite revealed little information. The gage was only sampled for quality data <br />once per year from 1978 to 1980 and very little data was gathered. An investigation into USGS and EPA <br />reports on water quality in the South Platte River basin revealed that water quality at the upper reaches <br />of the basin, near Alma, was good in spite of considerable past lode mining upstream from the Alma <br />Placer. There were trace elements found in the upstream portions of the basin due to past lode mining <br />but no problems with pH, suspended solids, dissolved solids, nitrogen, nitrates, pesticides and organic <br />chemicals. <br />The London Mine, located upstream on Mosquito Creek, is known to contribute some lower pH water <br />with some dissolved metals but this site's discharge is operating with a permit from the Water Quality <br />Control Division and should always be in compliance. The flows from the contaminated water this mine <br />are only 15 -30 gallons per minute and this small amount is drastically diluted by the time the water gets <br />to the River at the permit area. All of the USGS papers that evaluated the South Platte basin concluded <br />that the water quality problems in the watershed occur much further downstream, with agricultural <br />chemicals and urban development. <br />Sullivan Aggregate Pit March 2015 H -2 <br />