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Mine Site Inspection <br />Mine Name: West Elk Mine <br />Permittee: Mountain Coal Company, LLC <br />Permit ID#: # C-1980-007 <br />Inspection Date: September 24, 2020 <br />Time: 9:00 — 1:20 <br />Inspection Type: Partial Oversight Inspection <br />Weather Conditions: Seasonably warm (50's - 60's), scattered clouds, dry ground <br />Participants <br />Christine Belka: Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) 9182 <br />Leigh Simmons: Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety (DRMS) <br />Kathy Welt, Mountain Coal Company, LLC (MCC) <br />Background / General Information <br />West Elk is an active, producing, underground coal mine in Delta and Gunnison Counties. <br />Cessation Order, CO-2020-001, modified on September 171', remains in effect as it pertains to <br />activities on longwall panels SS3 and SS4. This was a partial oversight inspection. <br />Rule 4.02: Signs and Markers <br />Permit identification signs contain all required info (permit number, mine and operator names, <br />address, and phone number) and are placed at the mine entrance from public road CO- 133. <br />Topsoil and subsoil stockpiles were marked as required on all inspected areas. <br />Rule: 4.03: Roads <br />All roads travelled were in good repair. The road to the refuse disposal facility appears recently <br />resurfaced with gravel and newly configured safety berms. The access road to mine ventilation <br />boreholes on longwall panel SS1 was in good repair. The gate to the road on longwall panel SS2 <br />was locked and that road was not traveled during this inspection. <br />Rule 4.04 Support Facilities <br />DRMS modified its existing Cessation Order, CO-2020-001, on September 17t' to allow <br />construction of two additional drill pads and drilling of all planned boreholes on longwall panel <br />SS2, as previously approved. DRMS made this modification based on MCC submitting <br />documentation from the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management clarifying their <br />interpretation of the Colorado Roadless Rule and associated rights under the federal coal leases <br />related to work on panel SS2. The modified Cessation Order continues to prohibit any surface <br />disturbing activities on federal land above panels SS3 and SS4. <br />MCC had constructed two drill pads with an associated access road prior to the court decision <br />resulting in Cessation Order CO-2020-001 halting further activities. No further activity on SS2 <br />has commenced since DRMS's modification of the Cessation Order. MCC is currently lining up <br />drillers to do the work and anticipates this may begin on or around October 2. The gate to the <br />SS2 access road was locked during the inspection. <br />1 1 P a g e <br />