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" Assessment Office Office of Surface M• ng • May 17, 1979 Page Four contribution of suspended solids to stream flow. Thg main access road has not been scraped and has mud in excess of four inches deep and runoff water leaving the road has entered into the natural drainage." Again, SEI points out that the OSM inspector did not have jurisdiction to issue this violation for an exploration operation conducted in accordance with a USGS approved exploration plan. The road in question is, in fact, under construction. As a means of insuring adequate road design in regard to usage in an environmentally sound manner, a registered professional engineer was contracted to prescribe design criteria and construction methodology. To date, the subgrade material has been placed and compacted. The next step will be the placement of subbase material. This step has been delayed since December, 1978 due to the early establishment of a frost line followed by heavy rains and late snow in the spring. The OSM inspector visited the exploration site on the Fourth day of consecutive snow and rain. This, coupled with the normal snow melt in Garfield County, Colorado at this time of the year, means that mud is unavoidable. SEI had attempted to deal with this situation, especially during the period of time that the road was not completed, with controls in the form of straw dikes along the sides of the road to absorb sedimentation. The straw dikes were in place at the time of the inspector's visit on May 9, 1979, but the accumulation of water caused a breach in the road berm allowing an insignificant amount of water runoff at that point. SEI continues to follow a road maintenance plan which would comply with SMCRA. It should be noted, however, that the plan does not include scraping as proposed by the inspector, as scraping does not control mud and only in- creases adverse runoff potential. For these reasons, we urge you not to assess a penalty. 4. The fourth alleged violation states that SEI failed "to post a mine permit and identification sign." The McClane Canyon operation is an exploration operation conducted pursuant to a USGS approved exploration plan which does not require a sign to be posted on the exploration site. SEZ could put up an identification sign stating that it is an exploration operation conducted pursuant to USGS approved plan, but there is no way that the identification sign could contain the mine permit number as required by SMCRA for a sign at a mine site.