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III IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ~ <br />STATE OF COLORADO <br />Roy Romer, Govei <br />DEPARTMENT OFNATURALRESOURCES <br />MINED LAND RECLAMATION DIVISION <br />FRED R. BANTA, Director <br />DATE: April 17, 1989 <br />T0: Mike Long <br />FROM: Jim Stevens <br />RE: TBM (Expired Permit C-81-048) Redesignation of Certain Reclaimed <br />Areas for Residential Use and Amendment of Board Order <br />As a result of the sale of portions of the old TBM Coal Mine, conflicts have <br />arisen between the new surface owner and Mr. Vance Mills regarding the <br />maintenance of areas reclaimed within the old permit area by Mr. Mills under <br />Board Order issued December 28, 1984. In that Mr. Mills neither owns nor <br />holds leases on any of these reclaimed areas for which he continues to have a <br />maintenance obligation, he must have the surface owner's cooperation in order <br />to satisfy the requirements of the Rules and the Division. The surface owner, <br />however, is pursuing a plan of dividing the area into 35 acre ranches, cutting <br />access roads to the tracts, and reorganizing the surface drainage system. <br />Certain of the new roads have been cut across portions of the reclaimed area; <br />revision of the existing surface drainage system has resulted in <br />short-circuiting a sedimentation pond. Since these constitute violations of <br />Board Regulations which tdr. Mills is powerless to abate, clearly some <br />alternative must be found. <br />It is believed that the problem can be rectified by securing an amendment to <br />the Board order redesignating for residential use those areas of the mine now <br />under development by the new surface owner. With such designation, Mr. Mills <br />could be relieved of his obligation for long term maintenance of the <br />vegetation and the drainage of the reclaimed areas. Such redesignation is <br />apparently acceptable to the new surface owner and to Mr. Mills; both have <br />expressed willingness to petition the board to that effect. <br />The only problem currently believed to exist in doing this is determining <br />whether the Division has any liability in the event some future owner of a <br />tract encounters constructional problems in a reclaimed area. These areas are <br />steeply sloping areas of fill, not well compacted. The Division has made the <br />new surface owner aware of these conditions in meetings with him. Is that the <br />limit of our responsibility? <br />JCS/eke <br />5316E <br />215 Centennial Building, 1313 Sherman Street Denver, Colorado 80203-2273 Tel. (303) 866-3567 <br />