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Section 2.04.3 Page 4 December 2021 (RN-02)  <br />Property and lived for years on what is now the Glasier Property. In addition, former New <br />Horizon employees Lance Wade and Ross Gubka, who both began working for New Horizon in <br />1992, were also consulted. <br /> <br />Consultation was also made with Mr. Jim Boyd former NRCS District Conservationist, in <br />Norwood, regarding the historic involvement of the NRCS with respect to the management of <br />these properties. Mr. Dean Stindt, who was formerly the NRCS District Conservationist with the <br />NRCS also in Norwood and worked there for almost 10 years before Mr. Boyd took his place. In <br />addition to these discussions, the NRCS aerial photography taken in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009 <br />as well as earlier aerial photographs assisted in the consultations. <br /> <br />In the long term, there appears to have been a rather pronounced decrease in the level of <br />management since Mr. Carl Mitchell sold his property and moved off the site nearly 13 years <br />ago, on what is now the Glasier property. Similarly, during the ownership of Mr. Jack Smith, <br />father of Mrs. Thomas Meehan, there was decidedly more intensive irrigation of this property <br />while he lived on the property. It appears that there have been significantly less intensive levels <br />of management on both the Glasier and Elk Ridge-Meehan properties than what is experienced <br />on the Garvey property where the owners essentially live on the land. Mr. Preston Carver reports <br />that since he has leased the Glasier and Elk Ridge-Meehan property in 1984, it has essentially <br />had the same level of management. Given the fact that on both the Glasier and Elk Ridge- <br />Meehan property there has been a significant invasion of Prairie Dogs into what was historically <br />irrigated pasture and given the size and number of these burrows, as well as the type of <br />vegetation now growing on these sites, it can be concluded that there have been no dramatic <br />changes in management direction within the past five years on either the Glasier or Elk Ridge- <br />Meehan property as reported by Mr. Carver and the others consulted. Based upon our experience <br />with the site starting in October of 2008, and examination of this information, we conclude that <br />there have been no changes in land use on these properties in the past five years. <br /> <br />Existing Land Uses within the New Horizon North Mine Permit Area <br /> <br />According to the existing Land Use definitions found in Section 1.04.71, the current DRMS <br />regulations contain a total of ten accepted land use categories which include: Cropland, <br />Pastureland, Rangeland, Forestry, Residential, Industrial or Commercial, Recreation, Fish and <br />Wildlife Habitat, Developed Water Resources and Undeveloped land. These definitions follow <br />those originally promulgated by the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM). On 30 August <br />2006 (see Federal Register vol 71, number 160 pages 51683-51706), the OSM formally revised <br />the definition of “rangeland” changing it to “grazingland” and making associated changes in the <br />revegetation success criteria associated with this land use. The DRMS has submitted a request to <br />the OSM to change their definition of “rangeland” to comply with the OSM category of <br />“grazingland” but to date, no approval of this change has been issued.