HYDRO28710

• Permit No: C1996083
• IBM Index Class Name: Hydrology
• Doc Date: 6/6/2005
• Doc Name: Response Memo on Spring Water Issue & CDPHE
• From: Joe Dudash
• To: Sandy Brown
• Permit Index Doc Type: Correspondence
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

STATE OF COLORADO
DIVISION OF MINERALS AND GEOLOGY
Department of Natural Resources
1373 Sherman St., Room 215
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]
DATE: June 6, 2005
' COLORADO
. DIVISION O F
MIN;SLRALS
~,~~ ~ ~ GEOLOGY
RECLANATION•NININL
- SAFETY•EUENCE
TO: Sandy Brown Bill Owens
Governor
FROM: Joe Dudash ~ ~~ Russell George
Executive Director
RE: Bear No. 3 Mlne, ermit No. C-81-033, Bear Coal Company Ronald W, Cattany
Bond Release No. 3 (SIr3), Spring Water Issue and the CDPHE Division Director
Natural Resource Tmstee
This memo is in response to your request for information about the spring water issue at the Bear No. 3 Mine.
Sometime in late 2004 or early 2005, 1 noticed that the DMR's for the second, third and fourth quarters of 2004
for the Bear No. 3 Mine stated that there were no discharges from the spring water treatment pond. In March of
2005, I asked Basil Bear to explain this since that pond always discharges. He said his understanding was that,
since the water was reclassified from mine water to spring water in the DMG permit, the NPDES discharge
point did not have to be sampled anymore. So, he said, he just filled out the DMR as "no discharge" for the
spring water discharge.
I explained to Basil that changing the DMG permit does not automatically change the NPDES permit. Basil said
he knew and that Jim Stover was working with the CDPHE on amending the NPDES permit, but sampling of
that NPDES point could be stopped in the meantime. In the NPDES permit, that outfall is NPDES point 001 and
is described as being mine drainage to the North Fork.
called Chris Gates in March 2005 and he said there was no such amendment in house. I explained to Chris that
the DMG permit designation was changed from mine water to spring water to simply reflect that the water was
coming out of the hillside near the old Edwards Portal. The DMG had no proof that it was actually mine water
so the name was changed. The name change was not meant as a findings. [also mentioned to Chris that the
DMG had taken its own water samples to determine the cause of the orange color in the water. In March,
asked Jim Stover about the NPDES permit changes and he said he had not applied for the amendment yet.
In April of 2005, the Division received the letter dated April 4, 2005 from the CDPHE (by way of Jim Stover)
concerning this spring water. 1 have three comments concerning this CDPHE letter:
1) In the last sentence of the first paragraph, the letter states that the Bear Coal Company monitors this
spring water "as if the water were a part of its discharge permit". However, according to the NPDES
permit, it is a part of the current discharge permit, specifically NPDES discharge point 001 (Mine
Drainage to N Fk Gunnison).
2) The letter states that the DMG determined that the water was spring water associated with the landslide,
not mine water drainage. However, the Division never formed conclusions about the origin of this water.
3) The last sentence of the letter states that the NPDES permit does not need to be amended to show the
proposed bypassing of the treatment pond and rerouting of the spring water directly to the river because
the proposed changes won't alter the NPDES permit. However, the letter does not mention that the
NPDES sampling can be stopped for that discharge point, as the Bear Coal Company has claimed.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
a/word/bear3/s13 memo 1
Office of Office of Colorado
Mined Land Reclamation Active and Inactive Mines GEnlogiwl Survey