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k •~; ~~ ~~ y MICHAEL C. IRELAND, P.C. Acwmey ac w~ The groundwater issue is critical because no real mitigation appears to be available if contamination occurs and may be masked by artificially high baseline data. Reed Kelly, President of the Colorado Native Plant Society, Yampa Rika Branch, is particularly concerned because he and I ]earned at a public hearing that communication between the Upper and Lower Aquifer is much more than a speculative possibility even though the impact of communication through fractures in the Mahogany Zone may not be felt for years or decades. At that point, recalling the contaminated water will be impossible. Events of the last two months suggest that no regulatory agency knows enough about the project to permit it, and that much more work must be done to know whether state and federal regulatory standards can be met. The project is being rushed to approval by the BLM in a part of the state that needs and wants development. The BLM appears to have approved a revised Water Monitoring Plan within 48 hours of submission in late April. Neither 1 nor Mr. Kelly am opposed to all development, but we are opposed to development at any cost to the environment and resources of the state of Colorado. In addition to inadequate baseline data, the lack of other critical data demands that EPA take its time to carefully scnttinize this project before granting U]C permits. Few people have truly had the opportunity to comment on the project, because this critical data has been withheld throughout the process. As mentioned above, the Commercial Mine Plan -- which outlines what the project will entail -- was withheld from the public for months, until well after the comment period closed for the Draft EIS. The Ground Water and Surface Water Monitoring Plan was similarly scarce. The draft of April 8 was marked confidential and I was able to obtain it only through a request to the Rio Blanco County attorney and after a public hearing in Rio Blanco County. I learned of the existence of a plan and its confidentiality when I submitted comments on the Draft EIS for the project. I asked for a copy of the plan and was told it was confidential and would not be released. This is a violation ofNEPA, federal open government laws, and the BLM's own regulations, and makes it very difficult to determine what the details of the project are. I am disheartened that in 1999, a proposal can make it this far by hiding or delaying distribution of information from the public. Public officials should be concerned about the concerted effort by American Soda to hide the details of its project from the public and by the appearance of having chosen anomalous data points. You must ask what the company has to hide, and why it would not conduct the standard baseline monitoring of ground water before asking to undertake a major project like this. I urge you to take the time you need to review this plan and to make sure before approving this permit application that underground sources of drinking water will be protected and al] baseline data will be assembled and submitted to public scrutiny before a permit is issued. I learned several things about American Soda during the consideration of a special use