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<br />American Soda submitted a Commercial Mine Plan to the BLM in August 1998. <br />The BLM is required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA} and <br />Council on Environmental Quality directives to analyze potential effects on the <br />environment from proposed actions involving federal land and leases (40 CPR <br />1500-1508). BLM is currently in the process of developing an Environmental <br />Impact Statement (EIS) for this project. A draft EIS has been prepared and will <br />be provided to the CDMG. <br />DESCRIPTION <br />The Yankee Gulch Project involves construction and operation of a commercial <br />solution mine, which will produce approximately 1.4 million tons per year of <br />nahcolite for the first 30 years of operation. The Yankee Gulch Project involves <br />three distinct areas: <br />• An approximately 4,084-acre site located on federal sodium leases in the BLM <br />White River Resource Area in Rio Blanco County (the Piceance Site), which <br />will support the solution mining well field and the initial processing facilities; <br />• An approximately 44-mile-long pipeline corridor located primarily on BLM <br />lands in Rio Blanco County and entirely on private lands in Garfield County; <br />• An approximately 304-acre site at an existing, inactive industrial facility on <br />private land in unincorporated Garfield County (the Parachute Site), which <br />will support the final processing facilities. <br />The Piceance Site will include facilities related to extracting sodium bicarbonate <br />solution from a series of solution mining wells and will also house initial <br />processing facilities to prepare and concentrate the solution prior to pipeline <br />transportation to the Parachute Site. It is anticipated that development of the <br />Piceance Site will involve incremental surface disturbance of approximately 555 <br />acres over 30 years. The Piceance Site also includes an existing experimental test <br />mine facility, which occupies 13 acres. The test mine facility will be retained and <br />operated in a research capacity. <br />The pipeline corridor will hold a product pipeline and a return water pipeline. <br />Both pipes will be buried in the same trench. The product pipeline will convey <br />partially processed sodium solutions to the Parachute Site for final processing, <br />and the retum water pipeline will convey recycled water and make-up water to <br />the Piceance Site for use in solution mining. The pipeline corridor will be routed <br />parallel to existing pipeline corridors for approximately 33 miles. <br />ii <br />