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Revegetation Assessment - Revised <br /> Guanella Reservoir <br /> Clear Creek County, Colorado <br /> July 11, 2018 <br /> Background <br /> The City of Golden (Golden) operates the Guanella Reservoir(reservoir)constructed within the Empire <br /> Pit, near the town of Empire, in Clear Creek County,Colorado. The reservoir is currently operating <br /> under the Empire Pit, 112 Operation Reclamation Permit No. M-1977-534 (permit). This permit <br /> encompasses both the reservoir and the area east of the reservoir(Phase II),and the permit calls for <br /> grading Phase II to the approximate original contours and revegetating with the seed mix included in the <br /> permit. The grading and seeding of Phase II was completed in 2013. In 2017, Golden requested that the <br /> Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety(DRMS) permit be released from further reclamation <br /> responsibility. The DRMS inspected the site on September 1, 2017 in response to this request. Based on <br /> this inspection, DRMS issued an inspection report that identified areas of deficiencies occurring on the <br /> eastern edge of Phase II (September 2017 inspection report)that currently lack vegetation. The areas <br /> DRMS identified are shown in orange on Figure 1 (project area). As stated in the September 2017 DRMS <br /> inspection report,the operator must revise the reclamation plan to address the establishment of <br /> vegetation within the project area. To comply with the revegetation request,Golden requested a <br /> Technical Revision (TR03,January 23, 2018)for this permit to remedy these deficiencies. On February <br /> 14, 2018, DRMS submitted an adequacy review(#1)commenting on details of the revised plan. <br /> To respond to these comments, Golden contracted with ERO Resources Corporation (ERO)to provide <br /> technical responses to the questions raised in the adequacy review and recommend revisions to the <br /> revegetation plan for the project area proposed in TR03. ERO prepared a preliminary Revegetation <br /> Assessment in March 2018 (ERO 2018) based on soil sampling conducted on March 2,2018 when the <br /> ground was partially frozen. In this report, ERO preliminarily recommended removing about 30 inches <br /> of soil and adding a 6-inch barrier and then 25 inches of topsoil and subsoil. These preliminary <br /> recommendations would be further refined after additional soil testing was conducted after the soils <br /> thawed. This document presents a revised Revegetation Assessment based on more detailed soil testing <br /> conducted on May 11, 2018. <br /> ERO Project#7158 1 <br /> ERO Resources Corporation <br />