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<br />requires the Board to assure minimum disturbance to the quantity <br />of water and surface and ground water systems during reclamation <br />while assuring that the project minimizes the disturbance to the <br />hydrologic balance. The significance of the requirement to <br />minimize disturbance to water quantity is particularly relevant <br />in this case, where the Board suggests that it can somehow <br />investigate disturbances to water quantity in surface and ground <br />water systems without requiring applicants to indicate their <br />water sources and water rights. Neither the Board nor Battle <br />Mountain explain how the Board will be able to do this. <br />Curiously, both the Board and Battle Mountain conclude <br />that the recent amendment to $ 34-32-116(7)(8), C.R.S. (1989 Cum. <br />Supp.) makes clear the legislative intent that reclamation <br />permits be independent of water rights. (Board at 12; Battle <br />Mountain at 27.) The amendment merely clarifies what was already <br />the existing law -- that an applicant has a dual obligation to <br />comply with the water laws as well as mining and reclamation <br />requirements. Nothing in the amendment suggests either directly <br />or indirectly that the Board may ignore the requirements of <br />Rule 2.1.2(8). <br />Although Battle Mountain recognizes that the intent of <br />the Act "is to 'encourage the orderly development of tr.e state's <br />natural resources "' (Battle Mountain at 30), it argues that such <br />intent is best served by granting it a mining permit before it <br />-8~ <br />