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• ~ 9 <br />June 18, 1985 <br />Daniel's Pit 2 <br />C. Farrell <br />Item 6 - Please discuss the possibilitly of mining the 20 to 80 foot <br />highwalls in a benched fashion. This has shown to promote stability and <br />facilitate reclamation (backfilling stability and reduction in volume <br />required). <br />RESPONSE: Mining the deposit in benches would waste a great deal <br />of the resource. Furthermore, the stability issue you raise would be <br />entirely valid for some kinds of materials, especially more consolidated <br />material. But this sand is stable on 3:1 slopes even with very long <br />slopes without benches. It is our feeling as well as our experience <br />that mining it in benches, although theoretically it should enhance the <br />reclamation, actually is unnecessary and wastes many hundreds of <br />thousands of tons of valuable resouces. <br />With respect to backfilling, we are not concerned about the <br />"expense" of this because the waste will be produced and must be <br />disposed of in some way. So long as it is there and it is unavoidable, <br />/ using it for reclamation backfill is of little significance. Stability <br />is not a problem with the waste so long as it maintains a generally <br />sandy clay loam texture. It compacts well, drains completely, and <br />produces a good foundation when placed in lifts. <br />Item 7 - To prevent the loss of the approximately 1~ of topsoil into <br />product, perhaps the topsoil can be stripped slightly ahead of the <br />expected highwall limit. The exposed corridor may be temporarily <br />stabilized with crimped mulch until extraction ensues. <br />RESPONSE: We agree that this loss is unfortunate, but the problems <br />produced by trying to save this amount of soil which would be sufficient <br />,~ to cover maybe an acre or about 0.39 of the total permitted area would <br />be far greater than the benefits. <br />First, it requires that salvage equipment be made available either <br />for a longer time and/or sooner than is normal. That reduces the <br />effectiveness of that equipment in other functions. There is no <br />equipment which is specifically designated to do nothing but <br />reclamation. It is known that some of the large coal strip mines have <br />such fleets of equipment, but then they are considerably "richer" than <br />aggregate mining companies who could not possibly afford to have such <br />equipment designated for only this purpose. <br />Second, Daniel's Sand does not have the farm equipment to crimp <br />mulch into sand. This would have to be done on contract and on such a <br />small scale it would cost the equivalent of about $3,000 per acre <br />because of such a small volume of need and the trouble a contractor <br />would have to go through to do that. Alternatively, a larger area could <br />be stripped, but then more land is exposed and in Colorado Springs where <br />wind can be rather severe at certain times of the year, too much land <br />exposed would probably blow away the crimped mulch. <br />