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floodplain. That amendment was approved,but the mining never got started in the amendment area <br /> because the new landowner who acquired the land from Rick Hunt did not want that area to be mined <br /> and Schmidt wanted to finish all the mining in the original permit before starting on the amendment <br /> land. The landowner wanted to use that area as crop land possibly for their Hemp farming that began <br /> on the west side of Running Creek shortly after they acquired the land. So Schmidt sought a release <br /> for the amended land which brought the permit footprint back to what it was when Rick Hunt was the <br /> owner and operator and Schmidt was simply a contractor who did the mining. However, now Schmidt <br /> is the operator as a result of a succession of operator approval, and not just a contractor. The <br /> landowner at that time was not particular about what the final land use was because they apparently <br /> were in the process of finding someone to purchase the land which turned out to be Lakeport. Now <br /> Lakeport's final use for the land will be for the Community Amenity facility which has not been <br /> planned yet. And that facility is to complement the residential areas that are on higher ground and <br /> mostly outside the Miller Pit permit boundary. <br /> The point of all of this is to present all of the passing of this land from party to party ever since Rick <br /> Hunt's death. Nobody really knew what they were going to use it for but just allowed the gravel <br /> mining to proceed. No land use change in the Reclamation Permit was requested because nobody <br /> knew what to change it to. So, it remained Rangeland until now. But even now its exact final use is <br /> still not clearly defined. <br /> It therefore seems reasonable that amending the permit at this time may be premature as no actual <br /> work has begun to develop the site. Economic conditions or other factors could change the trajectory <br /> of the use of this land once again and if the final land use in the permit is changed to residential <br /> development and that does not happen yet another amendment would be needed to change it to <br /> something else. It seems that there is a good argument for leaving the final land use as rangeland <br /> simply because that is clearly the most flexible land use of all of those listed in the law. One must note <br /> that in all of the years since Rick Hunt passed away nobody had a definite use for this land. Rick <br /> wanted to grow alfalfa to mix with grass to feed his cattle on another location than this one. He chose <br /> Rangeland because it was the most flexible of all the land uses. Nobody since then has ever had any <br /> plans to graze cattle on this land. They couldn't even decide what they would like planted on their <br /> Page 3 of 11 <br />