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that a request for a formal hearing must be made within 30 days of the first publication of the <br />proposed decision of DRMS. Consequently, this request is timely. <br />STATEMENT OF FACTS <br />I. The West Elk Mine <br />The West Elk Coal Mine is located near Paonia, Colorado, in the North Fork Valley of <br />Gunnison County. The mine opened in 1982 and is an underground coal mine that employs the <br />longwall mining method. Owned and operated by Mountain Coal, a subsidiary of Arch Coal, the <br />mine produces about 5 million tons of coal per year. The mine largely underlies national forest <br />land; portions of the permit area are within the boundaries of Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and <br />Gunnison National Forests which contain mature aspen groves and conifer forest, and plays host <br />to Canada lynx, black bear, elk, and other manner of wildlife. <br />Mountain Coal applied for a permit revision applied to expand the mine's boundaries and <br />operations. Expansion of these operations have historically required construction into pristine <br />forest, clearcutting of trees for drilling pads and methane drainage wells, and additional roads to <br />gain access to the methane drainage wells. Not only would further expansion destroy critical <br />habitat and forest, but it allows West Elk, Colorado's single largest industrial polluter of <br />methane, to continue to emit this climate -changing greenhouse gas. <br />II. PR -15 <br />On March 29, 2018, Mountain Coal submitted an application for PR -15 for the West Elk <br />Mine to expand the permit boundary into the Sunset Trail Roadless Area to the south of the <br />current boundary. The proposed revision would expand the permit boundary, adding 2,620 acres <br />and would also revise the current mining plan.' DRMS deemed the application complete for the <br />purposes of filing on April 5, 2018. <br />According to MLRB Rule 2.07.3(5), "[a]ny person having an interest which is or may be <br />adversely affected" by a DRMS decision "shall have the right" to submit comments on the <br />proposed decision, including a proposed permit revision. The regulations further provide that <br />"any person" who files objections or comments on the proposal may also request an informal <br />conference and a site visit to gather information for the informal conference. MLRB Rule <br />2.07.3(6). Accordingly, Conservation Groups provided comments in a June 1, 2018 letter, <br />requested an informal conference, and requested a site visit. See Conservation Groups, <br />"Comments to DRMS on PR -15 at West Elk Mine", (June 1, 2018), attached as Exhibit 1. The <br />site visit took place on June 21 and 22, 2018. During the visit, Conservation Groups were denied <br />access to private roads, despite having DRMS' prior agreement to allow access to the road areas, <br />due to Mountain Coal's representation that it lacked of right of entry to those areas. <br />Guardians sent a follow-up letter to DRMS on June 25, 2018, asserting that the PR -15 <br />application should be deemed incomplete, based on Mountain Coal's failure to provide evidence <br />of their legal right of entry and Mountain Coal's numerous changes to the permit application <br />s The mine permit area currently comprises 17,235 total acres: 11,838 acres located on federal lands and 5,397 acres <br />located on private lands within Delta and Gunnison Counties, Colorado. <br />2 <br />