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III. SCOPE - <br />The scope of work for this project included research, data acquisition and <br />analysis, model conceptual design formulation, model layout and construction, <br />initial model calibration to generalized water table conditions in the model <br />domain, simulation runs for two mining phase configurations, sensitivity analyses, <br />and preparation of this report. <br />IV. MODEL CONCEPTUALIZATION <br />The goal of this study, as described above, was to make initial predictions as to <br />the potential impacts on the ground water table resulting from the mining being <br />carried out at the Platte Valley Pit. The mining process involves "dry" mining in <br />which the mines are dewatered essentially to bedrock though a configuration of <br />drains and large pumps. To best calculate the effects of mining activities, and <br />recognizing that the mine areal configuration is not geometrically simple, nor are <br />the aquifer boundary and river configurations, it was concluded that simple <br />analytical methodologies would not be appropriate. Instead, it was decided to <br />construct a numerical simulation of the aquifer and use that model to run <br />simulations of the effects generated by the mine operations. The model code <br />chosen was the Modular Three-Dimensional Finite-Difference Ground Water <br />Flow Model created by the United States Geological Survey. This model code, <br />written by Alan Harbaugh and Michael McDonald, and more conveniently <br />2 <br />Martin and Wood Water Consultants, Inc. <br />