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Operational Compliance: <br />In reviewing the permit and examining the locations of disturbances, it appears that all <br />disturbances aze substantially within the limits defined in the permit maps. No land has been disturbed <br />outside the permit boundary. A few locations lapse a very short distance beyond the original mining limit <br />defined on the maps, but many other azeas are even further within the limit. No actual mining has occurred <br />outside the mining limit as defined in the permit. One disturbance (Area Ml) that physically appears to be a <br />mining location and is outside the mining limit is not actually a location where mining has occurred. This <br />location is actually a basin excavated as a secondary clean water pond for the processing operation. <br />Everything that was removed from the basin is still in place around the basin and the site can be reclaimed <br />simply by pushing the material back into the basin. <br />As noted in the inspection report, mining depth at the South Lowland area is significantly more <br />shallow than that allowed for in the permit. Mining depth in the East Upland azea is, according to the <br />permit, allowed to extend to a total depth of 40 feet if necessary. Although a few pockets of sand have been <br />found that may be that deep, they tend to be small and confined. Therefore, as a rule, mining depth is rarely <br />more than 25 to 30 feet deep and often considerably less that 25 feet. (The reclamation plan requires a <br />return of the land to an elevation not more than 25 feet below the original land elevation. Because much of <br />the mining does not even extend to that depth, that specific reclamation requirement is automatically met <br />leaving a need to backfill sites only where the depth is greater than 25 feet.) <br />Topsoil salvage and overburden salvage is consistently done. Although some overburden may be <br />sold as product, generally the demand for such material is very low resulting in the storage of lazge <br />amounts of overburden. Overburden remaining at the end of operations is used to backfill pits to the <br />required configuration. Al] topsoil is retained on site for reclamation use. During the course of the <br />operation, the amount of land and depth of land that needs to be reclaimed is monitored to insure that <br />sufficient overburden and soil is available to create at least the required maximum depth and slope <br />requirements contained in the reclamation plan. This will be discussed in the next section in more detail. <br />Capability for Reclamation in Compliance with the Permit: <br />The permitted plan contains the reclamation requirements for backfill depths and slope <br />requirements. The plan includes basically three standazds. One standard applies to the lowland mining. <br />There the main requirement is a restriction on the depth of mining which has already been shown to be in <br />compliance and is so indicated in the inspection report. Slope requirements for the lowland mining azea is <br />also restrictive and requires slopes no steeper than 4:1. That is primarily achieved by a cut and fill <br />approach with replacement of whatever is left after mining as fill. <br />The upland mining azeas contains two standards. One standard is for the western upland mining <br />and the other is for the eastern upland mining area. The western upland mining area is more restrictive than <br />the eastern upland mining azea. This is an important distinction contained in the approved plan. But <br />because only the eastern upland mining azea has been operated, the standazds for the western upland mining <br />azea can be ignored. No mining has ever been done in the westem upland area. <br />The standard for the eastern upland mining azea requires the creation of a final surface elevation no <br />more than 25 feet below the original elevation. Therefore, if mining were done to the maximum allowable <br />depth (40 feet) backfilling of that pit with at least 15 feet of overburden and soil would be necessazy. <br />However, as stated previously, mining to 40 feet is not generally possible due to the deposit razely being <br />that deep and where it is that deep that depth is achieved in too small of an azea to feasibly extract. Rarely <br />does the mining extend to a depth of greater than 25 feet and when it does it does not usually exceed about <br />30 feet. Therefore, as a rule, the bottom of the mining pit is at or even less deep than the required maximum <br />deviation from the original surface. <br />The upland reclamation also contains slope requirements. Slopes should not be steeper than 4:1 to <br />5:1. No measurements of slope gradients were done as a part of this revision, but all reclaimed slopes <br />Page 5 of 8 <br />