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-' • (Page 2) • MINE ID # OR PROSP_EICTF NG ID # N.-.Q~-C~ 3 INSPECTION DATE (N Ib I~SR INSPECTOR'S INITIALS ~Li' OBSERVATIONS This inspection was conducted for pre-operational purposes while the permit application for the pit was still under review. The applicant, Evan L. Melby, Inc. was represented during the inspection by Evan Melby and Scott Johnson (Consultant) who is serving as agent for the applicant in the preparation of the permit application. The required notice of the application was posted near the entrance to the pit. The applicant's representatives identified the wooden laths that were in use as boundary markers for the proposed permit area. It was acknowledged that such markers might not be as durable as perhaps needed for long term use. According to the applicant's representatives, the pit has been inactive since the original Cease and Desist Order was received. Operations by the applicant at the site were determined by the July 1999 Mined Land Reclamation Board to constitute unpermitted mining and the applicant was directed to cease all mining related activities at the site until a 110 or 112 permit was secured. A civil penalty was also assessed by the Board and an interim reclamation bond required. The required civil penalty was paid and the interim reclamation bond provided by the dates specified by the Board but the applicant's 110 permit application was not approved and a permit issued by the original corrective action date of September 27, 1999. That date was extended by the September Board to November 27, 1999. when the application could not be approved and a permit issued by that date, the corrective action date was further extended to December 10, 1999. Since adequacy issues still remained unresolved at that time although efforts to do so were continuing, the December Board extended the corrective action date for securing a 110 permit for the operation to January 26, 2000. The pit at present is relatively small and, according to reports, has had intermittent activity in the past by operators including Costilla County, itself. The permit application under consideration commits the applicant to maintain at least 3:1 slopes for the margins of the pit, to salvage 6-8 inches of topsoil during the mining operation and to stockpile that topsoil in a stable situation until needed for reclamation. Based on Division estimates of the cost of reclaiming the site at the conclusion of mining, the applicant has already supplied an $8,500 reclamation bond. During the inspection, it was indicated by the applicant's representatives that, in the future, quantities of rock resulting from the applicant's residential development in the area might be disposed of in the pit. Imported material, assumed to be similarly derived, was already being put into use as fill in leveling a lot adjacent to the proposed permit area. Part of this material currently extends into the proposed permit area where, reportedly, it would eventually be blended into the pit's final margins. The applicant's representatives were advised that, for a permitted operation, only materials certified as inert could be imported into the permit area for backfill purposes and this would include material from any leveling operation that extended into the permit area. The applicant's representatives were reminded that acceptable Exhibit E Maps illustrating the mining and reclamation plans still remain to be provided for the application and must agree with the narrative descriptions of those plans made in other Exhibits of the application.