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2 <br /> <br />Despite the recitation of cases asserting the unremarkable position that a permit involves <br />rights in property, Cotter fails to acknowledge: 1) the application documents Cotter filed that <br />request a hearing on Cotter’s entitlement to temporary cessation; 2) the express language of the <br />Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Act (MLRA) and Board Rules; 3) the absurd result that <br />would follow from a conclusion by this Board that Cotter bears no burden in a proceeding that <br />would effectively exempt these mines from the MRLA’s prompt reclamation and termination <br />requirements. <br />Given Cotter’s focus on assertions of property rights involving the reclamation permits, it <br />is important to recognize that a MLRA permit is neither permanent nor absolute. Rather, <br />according to the Board’s Rules interpreting the MLRA, extraction of minerals is the condition <br />precedent for a valid MLRA permit: <br />(1) A permit granted pursuant to these Rules shall continue in effect as long as: <br />(a) an Operator continues to engage in the extraction of minerals and/or the mining <br />operation and complies with the provisions of the Act; and <br />(b) mineral reserves are shown by the Operator to remain in the mining operation. <br /> <br />Rule 1.13.1(1); See also C.R.S. § 34-32-103(6)(a)(I-II). While the law also allows for limited <br />periods of temporary cessation, those periods are strictly limited to a total of ten years, and are <br />the exception rather than the rule. Thus, by ceasing to extract any minerals from its mines for <br />such extended periods (approaching 40 years in some cases), Cotter has put the viability of its <br />own permits at risk. Having put its permits at such risk (indeed, forfeited them given the ten- <br />year limitation on non-production), the Board should be guarded in accepting Cotter’s vocal <br />portrayals of vaunted property rights it asserts as inherent in its permits. <br /> In any case, based on Cotter’s own statements, Cotter is the proponent of a Board Order <br />approving a second five-year period of temporary cessation and thus bears the burden of proof. <br />In each of its letters to the Division requesting temporary cessation status, Cotter specifically