2017-03-16_REPORT - M1982112 - Laserfiche WebLink

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its presence and its blockage to acquiring some reserves in that area. The 66.14 acres of affected land is the value if this area and the mining affected land are added together. It is consistent with the way affected land was determined in the past. Water Issues: The mining operation does a limited amount of washing of the sand to produce a specific product of value. There is some question as to whether there is compliance with water laws. At this point, it appears that an augmentation plan established several years ago is still in effect. But that is dependent on a water lease from the City of Elizabeth that was held by Mr. Hunt. It appears that lease is still in effect and if that is the case then it might be that all is needed is a payment to Elizabeth for 2017 as there was a payment made in 2016. There are still questions and it is hopeful this can be resolved prior to the land ownership being transferred. Bonding Issue: The Division determined that the operation was under bonded and calculated a new bond amount. In the past, Mr. Hunt took care of the bond and by that policy the bank or the Estate should now be responsible for that, but provisions in the lease indicate that Schmidt is supposed to pay for those bonding costs. It appears that was ignored by both parties as the bond was small and the premiums were small. This also needs to be rectified in some fashion. One step is to provide the Division with a new value of maximum disturbed land through a technical revision. Now that the land has been thoroughly examined and reported here that adjustment can be pursued. In all probability a new boundary will be designated on the mining plan map which defines a "bonding boundary." This revision will be submitted in the near future. Then a new bond needs to be submitted by whoever the parties decide should do that. Maps: A new map is provided in this year's annual report that was never done in the past. That is the map that defines the land types in the permit. This map was prepared by carefully defining different units on a map based on a satellite image taken in late summer 2016. This provides a more precise inventory of exactly what is present in the entire permit area with regard to the nature of disturbance. From this the new currently affected land area was determined. This map is a detailed supplement to Map 1 which is the annual report map for this year which is of the same format as previous annual report maps. This inventory map is also useful in documenting the status of the land in the permit to help a new landowner become familiar with what is on the site and how the parcel is being used. Land Inventory Acreages: At the end of this report is a sheet that indicates the area contained in each of the units defined in the Land Inventory Map, Map 2. The letters in each colored unit on the map correspond to the individual units on the acreage accounting sheet. It is from these data that the more precise affected land area was calculated. Other than designations, the letters for each unit are meaningless - they are just a way of determining what was measured and where that unit exists on the property. Of course, these units are the units as defined at the time of the satellite image and some units will change over time. Please keep in mind, for technical mapping reasons, some of these units are on top of each other and where that occurs, the area of the smaller unit must be subtracted from the total area of the underlying larger unit to produce a true area of the underlying unit. That has all been done in the actual calculations of affected land. As a result, simply adding up all the unit areas will create a value that is larger than it should be and is equal to the amount of overlap that occurs in different units. Page 2 of 2