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2.0 PROJECT DESCRIPTION The Yankee Gulch Project involves construction and operation of a commercial solution mine, which will mine approximately 1.4 million tons per year of nahcolite for the first 30 years of operation. The Yankee Gulch Project involves three distinct areas: • An approximately 4,084-acre site located on federal sodium leases in the BLM White River Resource Area in Rio Blanco County (the Piceance Site), which would support the solution mining well field and the initial processing facilities; • An approximately 44-mile-long pipeline corridor located primarily on BLM lands in Rio Blanco County and entirely on private lands in Garfield County; • An approximately 304-acre site at an existing, inactive industrial facility on private land in unincorporated Garfield County (the Parachute Site), which would support the final processing facilities. All solution mining will take place at the Piceance Site within the Yankee Gulch Joint Venture Leases (Yankee Gulch Leases). The solution will then be transported to the Parachute Site via the pipeline. The Piceance Site will include facilities related to extracting sodium bicarbonate solution from a series of solution mining wells and will also house initial processing facilities to prepare and concentrate the solution prior to pipeline transportation to the Parachute Site. The pipeline corridor will hold a product pipeline and a return water pipeline. Both pipes will be buried in the same trench. The product pipeline will convey partially processed sodium solutions to the Parachute Site for final processing, and the return water pipeline will convey recycled water and make-up water to the Piceance Site for use in solution mining. The Parachute Site will be located at the existing, inactive Unocal Shale Oil Upgrade Facility. The former refinery will be modified and refurbished to accommodate the new final processing facility, which will process the partially processed sodium solution into commercial-grade sodium bicarbonate and soda ash. The Parachute Site encompasses approximately 304 acres. Most of the utilities, steam generation, water treatment, and cooling tower equipment will be reactivated, as will the ancillary buildings and railroad spur. Construction of some new facilities will also be required. Z Preliminary Response Plan Yankee Culch Sodium Minerals Project American Soda, L.L.P.