2017-02-15_REVISION - C1981041 - Laserfiche WebLink

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JAMES A. BECKWITH LETTER TO JAMES R. STARK, DRMS / COMMENTS TO PROPOSED DECISION ON SNOWCAP REPAIR PLAN / PG. 6 wit, the decision "...will become effective (as an approval of the Plan) upon the termination of the public comment period....". There can be no doubt. If Fontanari did not raise the objections and legal defenses cited herein, DRMS staff would have proceeded to countenance injury to Fontanari and Carey properties in violation of the Colorado APA and in excess of its statutory authority. C. DRMS' Presumptive Conclusions of Fact and Law Cannot Be Supported by the Full and Accurate Record of Proceedings. The Proposed Decision contains materials which have previously been submitted by Snowcap Coal. These include: (a) the April 19, 2016, Report of Investigation; (b) the Snowcap Repair Plan, including its related Cost Estimates and Time Line. Though not indexed or inventoried by DRMS staff in their Proposed Decision, Fontanari has already provided DRMS staff with extensive analysis and critique on both of Snowcap's primary filings. In the interest of brevity, and to reduce the volume of these Comments, Fontanari adopts and incorporates the entirety of its Comments on Snowcap Coal Company Report of Investigation [filed May 6, 2016], its Response to Snowcap Repair Plan, [filed October 27, 2016], and its Fontanari Repair Plan [filed October 27, 2016] as if the same were fully set forth. In addition, (and again to ensure that an accurate record of proceedings is made in this pleading), Fontanari offers the following summary. In 2014, DRMS, Snowcap and Fontanari discovered that irrigation water applied to the surface of Fontanari Parcel #71 had a direct hydrologic connection and transmission to Snowcap's collapsed mining cavern 100 feet below the surface. Irrigation water applied to the surface of Tract #71 immediately disappeared, in its entirety, down a sinkhole in the irrigation ditch. Snowcap, DRMS and Fontanari investigated and found that the water went directly into the collapsed mine cavern: building pressure upon the sealed portal. (Phase I, II and III Bond Release, Proposed Decision and Findings of Compliance for the Roadside Portals SL -08; Permit Number C1981-041, DRMS, August 14, 2014; Pgs. 32-33) An investigation ensued, resulting in certain commitments by Snowcap (and DRMS). On December 15, 2015, Permit C1981-041 was amended to commit Snowcap (who voluntarily assumed those duties) to investigating all lands owned by Fontanari 3 and Carey for hydrologic connections to underground caverns of the coal mine. Snowcap was to file a Report of Investigation followed by a Repair Plan (including cost and time estimates) by September, 2016. Though Fontanari owns 465 acres in the area of Snowcap's mine caverns, Snowcap only investigated a 15 acre portion of Fontanari Tract #71 (which, itself, contains 39 acres). In April, 2016, as part of its site investigation, Snowcap employed Fugro International to conduct ERT 3 Parcel 71 is 39 acres. Fontanari owns, in that area, 465 total acres: most of which are underlain by the collapsed mining caverns of the South Portal Mine. (Snowcap has never filed with DRMS a current mining map, so locations are estimated from the 1978 map submitted by GEX. The Fontanari parcels are identified in Comments to Report oflnvestigation; Pg. 3.