2016-05-04_REVISION - C1982056 (12)

Home Browse Search

Division's fourth adequacy review. TC responded to the permit acreage issue, the issues identified in the environmental monitoring program for the AVF's and provided a response regarding the cultural resources discovered. On September 25th, 2015 the Division sent a fifth adequacy review letter to TC that acknowledged that the LBM had not been approved and that the relevant adequacy review issue was still outstanding and that TC needed to update Section 2.04.4 of the permit to account for the cultural resources identified within the subsidence area and provide a mitigation or treatment plan if necessary. On October 8, 2015 the Division sent TC a letter requesting several updates to the ownership and control information contained in Exhibit 47 of the permit. On November 4th, 2015 the Division received a letter from Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. (Metcalf) at the request of TC. This letter included Metcalf s analysis of subsidence related impacts on the two cultural resources sites discussed above. This information was forwarded to History Colorado for review. On December 1 st, 2015 the Division received a letter from History Colorado that concurred that subsidence would likely not adversely affect the two sites. On November 27, 2015 TC responded to the adequacy issues regarding the ownership and control information contained in Exhibit 47 of the permit. The Division received TC's response to the fifth adequacy review on April 26, 2016. Included with TC's fifth adequacy review response letter was a letter from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) indicating the coal lease (#COC -54608) had been modified and was issued effective April 1, 2016. Overall, the Division's adequacy review issues were addressed, however several minor wording and pagination issues were identified and some of the revised pages needed to be updated to account for a separate minor revision (MR -290) that was approved while PR -10 was under review. Also, the Division identified some updates that were necessary to Section 2.03 of the permit regarding the modified lease obtained to mine within the LBM area. The Division sent TC a sixth adequacy review letter on April 27, 2016. On April 29, 2016, TC responded to the Division's sixth adequacy review letter. All of the Division's adequacy concerns were addressed. Permit Acreage Discrepancy Prior to the submittal of PR -10, the Division's permit system records indicated the permit area for the Foidel Creek Mine is 20,100 acres. TC indicated in both the PR-10/PR-11 application that the current permit area should be 22,447 acres. During the review of these revisions, the Division investigated this discrepancy. The large difference in permit acreage the Division has been recording and what TC has determined seems to have originated with Permit Renewal Application No. 3 (RN3), Permit Revision No. 5 (PR5) and subsequent revisions. It appears the Division requested the permittee to clarify the permit acreage with RN3 and there was a decision made on what the permit area should be. However, it is unclear what the final decision was, based on the information in the Division's file for RN3. PR5 and RN3 were under review at about the same time period and PR5 was approved two months after RN3 was approved. When PR5 was approved, permit page 2.01-4 was updated with a revised permit area of 23,040.9 acres. Technical Revision No. 33 (TR33) was submitted during the review of PR5 and was approved prior to PR5 and added 7.2 acres to the permit area. The date on revised page 2.01-4 is prior to the date TR33 was submitted. TR33 did not update page 2.01-4 so it is likely the 23,040.9 acres from PR5 does not include the 7.2 acre addition from TR33. By adding the 7.2 acres, the total permit area should have been 23,048.1 acres with the approval of PR5. The Division's decision form does not appear to have been updated with the correct permit area when RN3/PR5 was approved. PR6 requested to increase the permit area by 560 acres. This revision was approved but it does not appear the Division's decision form accounted for the increase in acreage. With the approval with PR6, the Page 8 of 52