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Page Two has not yet been granted, the mine plan has been revised. As we discussed during our meeting yesterday, the CMLRD is scheduled to approve the permit revision by September 14 (barring no requests for a formal hearing) and the OSM is making every effort to approve the revision sometime during the week of September 13. While this delay in crossing into the 1765-acre permit area extension is costly to WECC, adjustments to the mine plan have been made. It is, however, absolutely imperative that approval be granted no later than the end of September for this permit revision. Any further delays could have serious and perhaps permanent consequences on the future of the Mt. Gunnison Mine. The most serious of these include: 1. Loss of Federal Lease C-1362 which could turn the Mt. Gunnison Mine from a 40-year mine into something on the order of a 10-year mine. Atlantic Richfield has stated that if there is any chance that due diligence in Lease C-1362 cannot be met, they will not risk losing the right to obtain federal oil and gas leases and thus will begin relinquishing the coal lease. Since lease relinguishment procedures take several months, Atlantic Richfield is demanding that we meet due diligence well before August 4, 1986. Given that, plus the fact that more than 324,000 tons of coal must be mined from this lease block before August 4, 1986 in order to meet due diligence, operations must commence immediately in order to mine this tonnage. 2. Lay-offs of miners and staff due to reduced production. Approximately 25 of the current work force of 171 at the mine would be retained for 30 days for maintenance and then all would be laid off and the mine shut down. 3. Destroy logical sequence of mine development in order to maintain production and employment. 4. Necessitate that we purchase over $350,000 in equipment which we would not have had to purchase. As indicated previously, although costly, adjustments to the mine plan were made to accommodate the schedules for permit approval of the 1735-acre extension contemplated by the CMLRD and the OSM. However, this adjustment requires that mining operations turn west into the 320-acre permit area extension. Mining has already commenced in the first west submains immediately north of the panels in the 320-acre extension as shown on the accompanying map. Mining activities have now slowed down while West Elk waits for approval of the 320-acre extension. Unless approval is obtained by August 15, WECC management will begin laying off of miners since mining operations will essentially shut down. Thus, WECC respectfully requests that OSM do whatever is possible to obtain a final approval for this permit extension as soon as possible.