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ARCO :: <br />Legal <br />555 Seventeenth Sireel <br />Denver, CO 80202 <br />Telephone 303 293 4230 <br />Facsimile 303 293 4098 <br />Scot W. Anderson <br />Senior Attorney <br />April 16, 1993 <br />Mr. Michael B. Long <br />Division Director <br />Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology <br />Office of Mined Land Reclamation <br />1313 Sherman Street, Room 215 <br />Denver, CO 80203 <br />III IIIIIIIIIIIII III <br />~E~~~v~~ <br />APR 161993 <br />~neta~s ~ "`°~o9y <br />DtV\S\o~ ~, M <br />Re: Mountain Coal Comoanv/Notice of Violation No. C-93-006 <br />Dear Mr. Long: <br />On February 19, 1993, the Division of Minerals and Geology issued a Notice of <br />Violation (NOV1 to Mountain Coal Company's West Elk Mine. Mountain Coal Company <br />previously requested that you vacate this NOV. I have attached, for your <br />convenience, the letter dated March 4, 1993, making that request from Mountain Coal <br />to you. Mountain Coal continues to believe that the grounds set forth in this letter <br />provide a sufficient basis for vacating the NOV. As suggested in your letter of March <br />10, 1993 denying this request to vacate the NOV, Mountain Coal Company <br />participated in an assessment conference on this NOV on April 14, 1993. The <br />assessment conference officer was Dan Matthews. Mountain Coal Company <br />understands that Mr. Matthews will not recommend to you that this NOV be vacated. <br />Mountain Coal Company respectfully requests that you nonetheless vacate the NOV. <br />Mr. Matthews, explaining his rationale for not recommending that the NOV be <br />vacated, stated that it is his belief that there should be some written record of <br />Mountain Coal Company's submission of subsidence monitoring data to the Division <br />during the 1991 and early 1992 period. None can be found in the Division files. As <br />explained to Mr. Matthews, Mountain Coal Company had prepared subsidence <br />monitoring reports and on occasion delivered those reports (as well as other <br />correspondence) to Division inspectors when they were at the West Elk Mine. As a <br />result, there is no cover letter in the Mountain Coal files recording the transmission of <br />these reports to the Division. In general, cover letters were not always sent with <br />subsidence or other reports. Viewed in light of the NOV, this practice may have been <br />unwise. Nonetheless, it was accepted practice at that time. It continues to be the <br />practice of Kathleen G. Welt, the Environmental Supervisor for Mountain Coal <br />Company's West Elk Mine, to discard prior subsidence monitoring reports because <br />each new report is cumulative, and includes all data from all previous reports. I have <br />attached for your review an affidavit from Ms. Welt setting forth the relevant facts. <br />Additionally, it has been the practice of the Division to review subsidence issues <br />during routine inspections of the West Elk Mine. In fact, the Division specifically noted <br />in an inspection report on 1991 that it inspected subsidence monitoring data. The <br />Ailamic R¢~lieitl Company <br />