2018-11-26_GENERAL DOCUMENTS - C1980004

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Summary The Review Process MCM's application for Successive Renewal No. 8 (RN -08) of Permit C-1980-004 was received by the Division on December 7, 2015. The application included a renewed certificate of insurance, in addition to the required application form and proposed newspaper public notice. The application was deemed complete on December 17, 2015, and notices were provided to various local, state, and federal agencies on that date. Checks of the Office of Surface Mining's Applicant/Violator System was conducted on August 21, 2018 and on November26, 2018. No problems were found. The Division has not received any comments regarding this RN -8 for the McClane Canyon Mine. Description of the Environment The McClane Canyon Mine is located approximately 20 miles north of Loma, Colorado, at an elevation of approximately 5,800 feet. Land use within the permit and adjacent areas is rangeland supporting both livestock grazing (cattle) and wildlife habitat. There is some irrigated agriculture in the East Salt Creek Valley adjacent to the permit area. Livestock grazing is generally confined to the lower lying canyon bottom lands. The steep canyon sideslopes and rugged uplands are primarily used by wildlife. Both mule deer and elk utilize habitat within and adjacent to the permit area in various seasons, and are the most common large mammals. Black bear and mountain lion also occur in the area, along with numerous smaller mammals, songbirds, raptors, mourning doves and chukar partridge. McClane Canyon is located in the Book Cliffs area just north of the Grand Valley. This area is northeast of the Garmesa Anticline and on the southern flank of the Piceance Basin. Local strata strike north-northwest and dip to the northeast into the Piceance Basin at between 2 and 3 degrees. The surface geology of the permit area is made up of the Mesa Verde Group of Upper Cretaceous Age, the Wasatch Formation of Lower Tertiary Age, and alluvium and colluvium of Quaternary Age. All local coal seams are in the Mount Garfield Formation of the Mesa Verde Group. The Mount Garfield Formation consists of fine grained to medium grained sandstones, gray shales, and coal bearing zones. The Sego Sandstone underlies the Mount Garfield Formation. Overlying the Mount Garfield Formation is the Hunter Formation, which contains massive cliff -forming sandstones that outcrop along the canyon walls of East Salt Creek. The Mount Garfield Formation contains four coal zones: the Loma, Carbonera, Cameo, and Palisade zones. The Cameo seam is mined at the McClane Canyon Mine. The occurrence of ground water within and adjacent to the McClane Canyon Mine permit area is controlled primarily by the combination of local topography, stratigraphy and geologic structure. Drilling has indicated that the Cameo seam becomes increasingly saturated downdip (northeast) from its outcrop along the side slopes of the East Salt Creek drainage basin. This is depicted on Figure 4.2-3 of Volume II of the permit application. As can be seen on the figure, the saturated zone extends downdip towards the northeast along a northwest -southeast trending line. The outcrop line of the coal, as well as the East Salt Creek drainage, runs roughly north -south in the vicinity of the permit area. Recharge to the Cameo coal seam occurs in an area where the coal seam subcrops in the East Salt Creek alluvium approximately two miles north of the McClane Canyon Mine permit area. The subcrop of the coal seam along East Salt Creek was created as the stream gradually cut