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Ms. Lemay November 12, 1997 Page Eight - The application of asphalt, oil, water or suitable chemicals on dirt roads, material stockpiles, and other surfaces that give rise to airborne dusts. - Traffic. The Applicant should specify the haul route he intends to use to transport the gravel. Any possible haul route is also used as a school bus route. The Applicant should specify the haul route's average and maximum haul traffic (daily and weekly) and commit not to exceed such amounts in future phases. In addition, national statistics reveal that surface mining operations are now more deadly than deep, or subsurface, mining. The principal cause of mining deaths is the high rate of speed driven by haulers who are paid on the basis of their rate of delivery. Large speeding vehicles, often overloaded, are recipes for disaster for other drivers, school bus operators and pedestrians on our narrow county roads. - Tourlsm. Tourism is one of Montezuma County's economic bases. Scenic beauty and cultwal resources (Anasazi occupation of our area) attract more than 700,000 visitors a year to our community. When landing at Cortez Airport, a visitor's first impression, when looking southwest toward the Sleeping Ute Mountain will be of Mr. Stone's gravel pit and crushing operation. This will have a negative impact on our business, since our Native American art gallery is located adjacent to this proposed industrial operation. - Cultural Resources. Our area's prehistoric treasures must be protected. In May 1997, while prospecting on the southwest boundary, Mr. Stone dropped a blade and a road was cut directly across an important archaeological site (5MT2020). This cut over the midden of a site, dated 1050-1140 A.D., damaged an area that shows surface Anasazi pottery and lithic scatter. It also has a very high probability of human remains and burials. This constitutes a violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and is viewed very seriously by the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation in Denver. While this is an issue that primarily affects the Bureau of Land Management and their mission of protecting America's cultural heritage, it has a negative impact on our entire community and to Native American people everywhere.