2020-06-25_REVISION - C1981035 (35)

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Environmental Assessment with an underground mining operation of approximately 565 acres (as of July 2015). GCC has applied for modification to the existing federal coal lease to expand the leased area for underground operations at the King II Mine site by 950.55 acres, also shown on the Project Area Map in Appendix A.No new surface facilities are required at the King II Mine for the proposed lease modification. As described in Section 1.1 Introduction, GCC submitted their original proposed lease modification to federal coal lease COC-62920 in 2010. The proposed modification was revised in 2014 because coal reserves within the original application had been bypassed during delays in the processing of the application. On January 15, 2016,the Secretary of the Department of the Interior announced Secretarial Order No. 3338,which placed a pause on the issuance of coal leases with limited, enumerated exemptions and exclusions while the BLM prepared a discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to analyze potential leasing and management reforms to the current federal coal program. Because of the Secretarial Order, GCC filed a request for an exemption under the Pause using the emergency leasing criteria on February 26, 2016. At the time of their request there was approximately 2,890,000 total recoverable tons of coal remaining in lease COC-62920. However, of that reserve, only 2,050,000 tons could be recovered without permanently blocking access to adjoining reserves. Because federal coal reserves would be bypassed beginning in approximately May 2018, GCC requested that its lease modification be considered for exemption from the leasing Pause under the emergency leasing criteria found at § 3425.1(a)(1)(1)(11)and(2)(b)(c). On July 12,2016,the BLM Assistant Director for Energy, Minerals, and Realty Management informed the BLM Colorado State Director that GCC's lease modification action for COC-62920 should be continued to be processed during the pause as provided in Secretarial Order 3338 Section 6(a)and the Interim Processing Policy. On August 26, 2016,the BLM Colorado State Office informed GCC of their intent to continue processing the subject lease modification as an exemption under the emergency leasing provisions. On March 29, 2017,the Secretary of the Interior issued Secretarial Order 3348,which revoked Secretarial Order 3338 and lifted the moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands. The coal from the King II Mine is favored for its high heating value (12,300 British thermal units [Btu] per pound) and its low sulfur, ash, and alkali content. It is sold off-site in the southwest U.S. and Mexico and used in the manufacture of cement. There are small volume sales to regional steam-powered railroads and to a local concessionaire for home heating. As shown in Table 1-1, coal production at the King II Mine increased annually until 2015. Reductions in coal production in 2015 were primarily due to depressed regional coal markets. In 2016, LPC issued GCC a Class 11 Land Use Permit(LUP) (Project #2012-0089)that included a Road Improvements Agreement(RIA)that limited coal truck traffic along CR 120 to trip volumes for various phases of road improvements that GCC agreed to make as part of their LUP. The LUP, RIA and the LPC Planning Department staff report are publicly available on the LPC Planning Department GCC Energy Project web page at: http://lpccds.org/planning_/gcc_energ_y project. These LPC planning documents as well as more than 80 exhibits that support the LUP planning process are incorporated by reference throughout this EA. Prior to the RIA and LUP, actual annual production was driven by coal and alternative fuel markets. Coal production at the King II Mine is currently limited by the number of allowable loaded coal trucks on CR 120 per the LPC RIA. The RIA allows an average of 80 loaded trucks per day through road improvement Phases 1, 2,and 3; 100 trucks per day after Phase 4 and 120 trucks per day after Phase 5 improvements are completed. Based on each loaded truck carrying approximately 28.5 tons,the DOI-BLM-CO-S010-2011-0074-EA September 2017 -14-