HYDRO29784

• Permit No: M1977344
• IBM Index Class Name: Hydrology
• Doc Date: 11/22/2004
• Doc Name: Quarterly Groundwater Monitoring
• From: BBL
• To: DMG
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

7. Introduction
Blasland, Bouck & Lee, Inc. (BBL) was retained by Holcim (US) Inc. to provide technical
support for Mine Permit Technical Revision TR-06 (TR-06) to State of Colorado Mining Permit
No. M-77-344 for the Holcim Portland plant and quarry. The Holcim Portland plant and quarry is
located in Fremont County, Colorado (Figure 1). The total area of the Holcim property is
approximately 3,400 acres. In partial fulfillment of the Colorado Division of Minerals and
Geology's (DMG) requirements for TR-06, a Groundwater Monitoring Plan (GMP) was
developed for the approximately 1,330 acres included within the boundaries of the mining permit
(Site) (Figure 2) (BBL, 2002). The main purpose of this GMP is to meet the requirements of the
Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board's (MLRB) Construction Materials Rules and
Regulations Rule 3.1.7 for the protection of existing and reasonably potential future uses of the
unclassified groundwater located beneath the quarry (MLRB, 2001). These requirements have
been triggered by the disposal of cement kiln dust (CKD) into previously mined sections of the
Site, and the potential for leachate from CKD to adversely impact ambient groundwater quality
for existing and reasonably potential future uses.
The final quarter of the required additional four quarters of groundwater monitoring at monitoring
well MW-10 was conducted on July 9, 2004. This document describes the procedures followed
during measurement of depth to groundwater at all quarry monitoring wells and piezometers and
collection of the groundwater sample at MW-10, and presents the results of the groundwater
depth measurements and groundwater sample laboratory analysis. The remainder of this
Introduction section presents the history of the site that is relevant to groundwater quality.
Section 2 describes the field activities for the measurement of groundwater levels, and sampling
of existing monitoring wells. Section 3 presents results for the groundwater analyses and
groundwater elevation measurements. Section 4 presents a description of future work. Cited
references are provided in Section 5.
With the submittal of the final quarter of groundwater monitoring data in [his report, Holcim has
met the requirements of the DMG for TR-06. DMG will use the data from the groundwater
monitoring program to establish the ambient groundwater concentrations and parameter list for
future monitoring. Holcim will initiate annual groundwater monitoring per the December 2002
Groundwater Monitoring Plan once the ambient groundwater concentrations and parameter list
have been established by DMG.
1.1 Site History
The Portland plant, located on the southern side of the Arkansas River, until recently consisted of
three (3) long, wet kilns with a combined cement production of approximately 937,000 tons per
year (tpy). The Plant currently uses a single dry kiln process for production of cement with a
capacity of 2,094,000 tpy. The facility utilizes afive-stage preheater/precalciner tower to prepare
material for the kiln. The tower includes heat-exchanging cyclones (i.e., preheater) in which the
dry feed is preheated and partially calcined by the kiln's hot exit gasses prior to entering the
actual kiln. A secondary firing device (i.e., precalciner) in the lower stage of the preheater further
calciuates the materials. CKD, a waste material from cement production, is dust that is generated
in the cement kiln and associated equipment. Using the prior wet kiln process, approximately
100,000 tpy of cement kiln dust (CKD) was generated during the production of cement at the
Portland plant (Resource Geoscience, Ina (RGI), 1999)). The current CKD production rate
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