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I. PROCEDURES AND SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW PROCESS <br />The Roadside Portals (formerly known as the Roadside and Cameo Mines) is an underground coal <br />mining operation located in Mesa County, approximately three miles northeast of Palisade, <br />Colorado, adjacent to Interstate 70 and the Colorado River, at the Cameo exit in DeBeque Canyon. <br />The official DRMS status of the operation is "Permanent Cessation"; there has been no coal <br />extraction at the mine since December 1999. The operation includes the South Portal Area and <br />associated facilities and mine workings located east of I-70 and the Colorado River, the North <br />Portal Area and associated facilities and workings including coal waste disposal sites located to <br />the west of I-70 and the Colorado River, and the former Unit Train Loadout (UTL), also located <br />to the west of I-70 and the Colorado River. The UTL received full phase III bond release in 2011 <br />and has been removed from the permit area. Ongoing activity at the Roadside Portals will be <br />limited to monitoring, maintenance, and reclamation. SCC originally requested phased bond <br />release for various surface area locations including 145.4 acres (corrected to 145.0 acres during <br />review) of reclaimed surface lands and 2147 acres of undisturbed surface lands at Snowcap Coal <br />Company's (SCC's) Roadside North and South Portals, South Fan, 2 West Portals, and <br />miscellaneous outlying areas. Following Division approval of this bond release application, SCC <br />intends to modify the permit area by removing those locations from within the permit boundary <br />that meet the requirements for full phase III bond liability release. <br />The former Xcel Energy Cameo Power Plant, which was a customer for coal from the Roadside <br />Portals when the mine was operating, is located just south of the North Portal facilities, on the west <br />side of the river. The Cameo Power Plant closed and entirely shut down its operations at the end <br />of December 2010. The stacks and buildings have been dismantled and are gone; the substation <br />will remain in place. <br />Underground mining operations using modern, mechanized methods began in 1974, and <br />continued, under various operators and with several periods of temporary inactivity, until final <br />cessation of coal extraction in December 1999. Between 1974 and 1999, approximately 241.7 <br />acres of surface lands were disturbed in conjunction with the operation, which produced up to <br />70,000 tons of clean coal per month. Including areas overlying underground workings, <br />approximately 3,524 acres were affected by the operation, within the original 10,310 acre permit <br />area. During the period of operations, coal was produced from both portals. South Portal <br />operations ceased in early 1997, and all coal production was shifted to the North Portal. Mining <br />ceased at the North Portal on December 2, 1999. Both the North and South Portals were <br />subsequently sealed and reclamation was initiated shortly thereafter. There are no plans for future <br />coal extraction at the operation, and reclamation work is now completed with exception of ongoing <br />maintenance and repair if needed. <br />The total permit area was significantly reduced in April 2008 with the approval of Technical Revision <br />No. 55 (TR -55). TR -55 reduced the permit area from 10,310 to 3,016 acres to reflect acreages <br />released with the approval of bond release application SL -03. The approval of TR -62 further reduced <br />the total permit area to reflect bond release approvals granted by the Division from 2009 through <br />2011. As a result of these revisions, the total permit area now encompasses 2,786 acres. <br />Page 2 <br />