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-5- <br />The Colorado Division of Wildlife considers the proposed permit area to be a <br />part of the region's critical winter range for deer and elk. <br />Description of the Operations and Reclamation Plan <br />The Carbon Junction Mine is a surface mine, with private mineral and surface <br />ownership. Approximately 530 acres are permitted. The life of the mine was <br />originally estimated at 5 years. Proposed original disturbed areas included <br />50.8 acres for the mine pits, 26.7 acres for an overburden fill area, 4.3 <br />acres for a staging area and 26.8 acres for the remaining mine facilities. <br />To date, approximately 40 acres have been disturbed by pit and fill <br />development, with approximately 50 additional acres disturbed by associated <br />support facilities. <br />Proposed surface facilities included an office building and scalehouse; <br />change-room and showers; a wash/processing plant, stacker, coal storage area <br />and reclaim tunnel; employee parki~g area; equipment storage yard and repair <br />shop; explosives storage van, det nator magazine and dynamite storage <br />magazine; two slurry ponds for th~ wash plant; a storage pond for wash plant <br />water; afresh water well; a domestic water storage tank; conveyors; a coal <br />storage area, and a truck loading area. There is also a light vehicle access <br />road and a coal haul road. To date, office facilities and wash plant and <br />associated facilities have not been constructed, nor have the overland <br />conveyor or coal loadout facilities. <br />The mining method is an open pit style surface mining method where three seams <br />dip at an angle of 26 to 30 degrees to the southeast and outcrop in a <br />northeast/southwest direction across hill and valley arrangements. The <br />lp anned pit covers an area of 50.8 acres and is bounded on three sides by the <br />limits of economic recovery. The pit was to have a maximum highwall of 470 <br />feet and use an out-of-pit fill for portions of the overburden until a <br />steady-state pit was developed. Currently, the mine has two pits as the <br />steady state pit was never developed. One pit is in the Lewis ("C") seam on <br />the northwestern segment of the property and the other is to the east across <br />Carbon Junction Canyon, mining the Lewis, Carbonera ("B"), and Shamrock ("A") <br />seams. Volume of the steady state pit was to have reached approximately 3 <br />million cubic yards with approximately 2.75 million cubic yards of material in <br />the excess spoil fill. Approximately 575,000 cubic yards of material have <br />been excavated to date, with a maximum highwall height of less than 100 feet. <br />Prior to any of the mining events, topsoil was removed, stockpiled and <br />stabilized with vegetation. To date, no final grading, topsoil replacement or <br />permanent revegetation has occurred. The reclamation plan, as proposed would <br />have resulted in the massive sandstones overlying the Lewis seam being placed <br />mostly at the bottom of the pit, with the remaining siltstone, sandstone and <br />shale placed on top of it. The suitable soil would have been removed and <br />