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:; POYtiDERHORN COAL COMPANY May 31, 1996 III IIIllllllllll III P.O. Box 1430 Palisatle. Coloratltl 61526 (97014647951 Fa%(970)4647161 RECEIVED ,Iji~,~ f1 C. ~~ Mr. Robert J. Shukle, Chief Division ofMlnorels8deolOgy Colorado Department of Health OrendJunplan Permits & Enforcement Section, WQCD-PE-B2 4300 Cherry Creek Drive South Denver, CO 80222-1530 RE: Notification of Noncompliance, CDPS Permits #CO-0027146 Dear Mr. Shukle: In accordance with Part 2.A.3. of the subject discharge permit, you are being notified in writing of noncompliance on our discharge outfall 004 on May 22, 1996. A call was made to Rick Horseman of your office on May 29, 1996, when we received confirmation from our lab. Weekly discharge monitoring was being done on May 22, 1996 when outfall 004 was found to have dirty black discharge. A sample was taken and sent to the lab for analysis. The lab faxed us the results on May 29, 1996, which showed a Total Suspended Solids, TSS, of 1850 mg/1. Our permit limit is 70 mg/1. An investigation into the cause of the high TSS in the discharge revealed that a pump had mistakenly been lowered too far into a sump. The pump picked up part of the solids that had settled to the bottom of the sump and mixed them with mine discharge water. The discharge is not visible from the pump and the error was not noticed until an hour or so later when I found it. The pump was raised above the sediment and the water cleared up. This high TSS may have occurred for 2 hours with a flow rate of 250 gpm, resulting in approximately 460 pounds of suspended solids being released. Another sample was taken on May 23, 1996. This sample showed 30 mg/1 of suspended solids. The pump had been removed from the sump to re-plumb it in preparation for rerouting water flows according to a plan submitted to Dan Mathews at the Division of Minerals and Geology, DMG. This plan was required to satisfy NOV C-96-010 written by DMG in response to a high TSS discharge found on March 28, 1996. The rerouting of flows according to the plan was completed on May 23, 1996.