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i` .~ Page 3 Mr. J. Herron December 11, 1980 Northern Coal Company This monitoring system will provide enough background data for determining normal flows in water during the. mining process when mining progresses under. Curtis Creek, It will allow us to determine if excess amounts of water are being encountered and the approximate volume of water. If the flows are significant and if it is warranted, the ground water wells could be checked on a more frequent basis. III. Flow Metering of_Curtis Creek Obviously, an important aspect of detecting hydrologic problems is monitoring the surface flow of Curtis Creek in order to detect any deviation in stream flow. We are installing anothei Parshall Flume with a stilling well, wing- wa11s, a Stevens F-Type Recorder with float and cable, a single stage sediment sampler and a crest stage gage at the location (HRS-3) indicated on map ME-7938-OS-1/1. This station will be continuously monitored for upstream flow, while HRS-2 will be continuously monitored for downstream flow for approximately three weeks prior. to mining underneath Curtis Creek and continuing until equilibrium has been achieved. ide feel this strategy will supply the information necessary to determine.any.effects that mining might have on surface water flow. IV. Ground Water Monitoring The fourth priority which we had discussed was.that of monitoring the existing ground water wells in the area near where Curtis Creek would be undermined. Should the monitoring in the mine indicate that we are encountering amounts of water in excess of what is normal, then such ground water monitoring would indeed be.important to show the effect,of such mining on the ground water. If, however, no additional amounts of water are encountered in the mine, then there is very little likeli- hood that the ground water wells would show any changes other than seasonal variations. As we related to you in our, meeting earlier, the surface over the main entries is not owned by Northern, nor does t7orthern have a lease on this land. We have been attempting to deal with the surface owner, Mr. Bud Rienau, in order to obtain surface access through a long-term arrange- ment. To date, we have been unable to do so and under these circumstances we will not be able to gain surface access to those existing wells. We have approached h1m with a request to allow us to get on to his property to do the required monitoring, however, as yet, we have not had a response and we cannot in any way be sure that the response would be positive. We hope 'to be able to obtain permission from him to do this monitoring and we will keep you posted of any further developments. In the event