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STATE OF COLORADO RICHARD D..+t, Gavem or <br />DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES <br />D. Monte Pascoe, Executive Director <br />MINED LAND RECLAMATION <br />423 Centennial Building, 1313 Sherman Street <br />Denver, Colorado 80203 Tel.(30$) 839-3567 <br />David C. Shelton <br />Director <br />TO: Chips Barry <br />FROM: Dean Massey <br />RE: AVF Grandfather Exemption, Rule 2.06.8(5)(a)(i)(C) <br />This memo is written in response to your request for me to briefly summarize my <br />thinking behind the language of the above referenced regulation. When <br />drafting regulations to implement Section 114(2)(e)(II) of the Coal <br />Act we were faced with a perplexing problem in applying the section to <br />underground operations. Basically, this section of the statute exempts <br />operators from the prohibitions on operating in an AVF on the basis of <br />certain criteria: <br />114(2) (e) (II) <br />The requirements of subparagraph (I) of this paragraph (e) shall not <br />affect those surface coal mining operations which, in the year preceding <br />August 3, 1977, either produced coal in cormnercial quantities and <br />were located within or adjacent to alluvial valley floors or had obtained <br />permit approval to conduct surface coal mining operations within said <br />alluvial valley floors; <br />For surface mines the application of this provision is quite clear <br />since surface mines had been required to have permits for their disturbed <br />lands under both the 1973 and 1976 laws. However, in the case of underground <br />operations there were the following complicating circumstances. Underground <br />coal mines were first required to be permitted under the 1976 law which <br />only required existing operations to make a complete permit application <br />by October 1, 1977. To further complicate the issue, the 1976 statute <br />did not cover the land overlying underground workings. Rn underground <br />coal mine therefore could not have had specific permit approval to <br />conduct the underground portions of their operation "within said <br />alluvial valley floors." The two statutes were therefore inconsistent in <br />the sense that the 1979 Coal Act contemplated a type of permit approval <br />not available under the 1976 statute. In the "real" world, this created <br />the possibility that underground operators currently mining in or <br />adjacent to an "AVF" would be precluded from claiming a rightful exemption <br />because of a technicality in the statutes. <br />(cont' d) <br />January 6, 1981 <br />