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The permit area varies in elevation from 6,600' to 7,800' with the portal openings at 6,690' along <br />Little Grassy Creek. The main mine facilities lie in Sections 2 and 3, Township 5 North, Range 8 <br />West and Sections 27, 34, and 35, Township 6 North, Range 87 West of the 6th Principal <br />Meridian, and are located adjacent to an active surface mine excavated originally by Seneca Coal <br />Company's ( SCC) surface mining operation (Permit No. C- 1980 -005). <br />The post- mining land uses are rangeland, recreational use, and wildlife habitat. <br />The Sage Creek Mine permit does not include a variance under Rules 2.06. 2 (experimental <br />practices), 2.06.3 (mountaintop removal), and 2.06.5 (approximate original contour (AOC) for <br />steep slope mining). No variance from contemporaneous reclamation for combined surface and <br />underground mining operations (2.06.7) is needed due to the fact that the Seneca II Mine ceased <br />operations in 1999 and has been reclaimed; the excavated pit accessing the Wadge Seam to <br />construct mine portals and other facilities to support an underground mine is not considered <br />surface mining; and the Peabody Sage Creek Mine reclamation bond includes any remaining <br />facilities from the Seneca II Mine. <br />Topography <br />The proposed PSCM permit area is located in the Yampa Coal Field, on the southern margin of <br />the Sand Wash Basin in the foothills of the Williams Fork Mountains. The Williams Fork <br />Mountains extend about 30 miles from east to west across northwestern Colorado. Elevations in <br />the permit area and adjacent areas are between 6,600 feet and 7,800 feet. The average elevation <br />of the permit area is approximately 7,040 feet. Most of the permit area is covered by rolling hills <br />with agricultural fields and rangeland. These low hills extend to higher elevation ridges and <br />steep slopes in the eastern and southwestern parts of the permit area. The perennially flowing <br />Grassy Creek crosses the permit area from south to north, and is joined by its two ephemeral <br />tributaries, Little Grassy Creek and Scotchman's Gulch, near the northern boundary of the permit <br />area (Little Grassy Creek has perennial flow in its lower part as a result of coal spoil spring <br />inflow from Pond 002 on lands transferred from the Seneca II Mine to the PSCM.) Grassy Creek <br />flows into the Yampa River two miles north of the permit area. The Yampa River is one of the <br />largest tributaries of the upper Colorado River system. <br />Geology <br />Section 2.04.5 of the PSCM permit application describes the geology and hydrology in the <br />permit and surrounding areas, which includes information from the following two U.S. <br />Geological Survey Water -Resources Investigations Reports (WRIRs): Hydrology and <br />Geochemistry of a Surface coal Mine in northwestern Colorado, WRIR 92-4187, by R.S. <br />Williams, Jr. and G.M. Clark and Geoh,, d�gic Evaluation of the upper part of the Mesaverde <br />Group, Northwestern Colorado, WRIR 90-420, by S.G. Robson and Michael Stewart. <br />The PSCM permit area extends from the crest of the Tow Creek anticline westward to the axial <br />area of the Hayden syncline. This area is on the southern edge of the regional Sand Wash <br />structural basin. The local stratigraphic sequence that is exposed at the surface is of Cretaceous <br />age. The sequence is, in ascending stratigraphic order, the Iles Formation, Williams Fork <br />5 <br />