HYDRO26580 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

~II ~~~~I~~I~~~~~ ~I~ sss Mountain Coal Company West Elk Mine Post OKce Box 597 Somerset, Colorado 81434 Telephone 970929.5075 Fax 970 929-5595 March 28, 1997 RECEIVED APR 0 21991 Division of Mmerels & Geology Mr. Jon C. Kubic, Environmental Protection Specialist Permits and Enforcement Section Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Water Quality Control Division (WQCD) 4300 Cherry Creek Drive South Denver. CO 80222-1530 `~ Re: Mountain Coal Company, West Elk Mine, CDPS Permit No. CO-0038776, Response Letter for Outfalls 013 and 015 Deaz Mr. Kubic: Mountain Coal Company (MCC) provides the following responses to the issues regarding the above-mentioned Outfalls (discharge points) per your letter of March 11, 1997. The amendment applications for Outfalls 013 and Outfall 015 were submitted to the Water Quality Control Division (WQCD) in letters dated November of 1996. At that time, MCC estimated that a discharge of 0-750 gpm would be conveyed to the North Fork of the Gunnison River (North Fork) via Outfa11013. As the WQCD is awaze, since the date of application five months ago, an unprecedented mine inflow event occurred that changed some of the original engineering calculations. As stated in your letter, the WQCD erroneously used a maximum effluent flow (50 gpm) for its calculation, rather than utilize the 750 GPM figure from MCC's original application. MCC has since redesigned the pipeline to discharge a maximum of 2,000 gpm directly into Lone Pine Gulch (and then to the North Fork). The pipeline has not been constructed as this facility has not yet been approved by the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (CDMG). The sampling and analysis requested by you in paragraph 3 of the March 11, 1997, letter, is being conducted on the North Fork and the mine water. The existing solute chemistry record for the North Fork and the mine water shows that none of the parameters requested by the WQCD and CDMG are problematic. This is because there is neither acid mine drainage (pH<6) nor an alkaline mine dischazge (pH>9) at MCC and "heavy metals" have not been a problem in the past at the West Elk Mine, nor are they expected. The solute chemistry information and the analyses the WQCD requested will be provided upon completion of the pipeline construction. The Division is already in receipt of instream Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) test analyses for the North Fork both upstream and downstream of MCC's operations. The WQCD received this