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NOV C-94-032 Orchard Valley Mine .This NOV was issued for failure to conduct hydrologic monitoring required by the mine permit. The Civil penalty is possibly being assessed less than fifteen days after service of the NOV at the operator's request, and following receipt of comments from the operator regarding the alleged violation. HISTORY No NOV's have been issued at this site during the past twelve months. No penalty is assessed for history. M SERIOUSNESS Environmental monitoring is an integral part of coal mining permits. Failure to conduct hydrologic monitoring obstructs the ability of the Division, the operator, and the public to assess mine related impacts on the hydrologic balance. In this case, over 200 points required to be monitored during the 1993 water year were omitted from the mine's monitoring. The operator commented that the majority of the missed monitoring points are no longer required, due to a reduction in the monitoring network approved as a technical revision on March 22, 1994. However, the failure .to monitor cited in the NOV occurred prior to approval of this revision. The operator was responsible for conducting all monitoring required by the permit at the time, and they failed to do so. Even taking the reduced monitoring plan into consideration, the operator failed to monitor several points which are required to be monitored. The operator asked that the penalty assessment "look beyond the question of whether or not particular monitoring criteria were met and to consider the larger question of whether or not the majority of the monitoring...was reasonable and necessary". This larger question is considered by the Division when monitoring plans are established in the mine permit. It would be inappropriate to evaluate the technical adequacy of the hydrologic monitoring plan during the civil penalty assessment process. While no actual impacts were observed due to this violation, there was a significant obstruction and the potential for undetected hydrologic impacts exists. Based on the extent of omissions in the 1993 monitoring conducted by COVCC and the variety of potential impacts which the monitoring plan was presumably designed to detect, $1000 is assessed for a significant violation.