2007-04-24_REVISION - M1977247 - Laserfiche WebLink

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A~ /~ ~ Z Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety Apri123, 2007 RE: Coaldale Gypsum Quarry 1515 Sherman Street, Room 215 Denver, Colorado 80203 ~~~ . ,,P. ~ /q/J~? Bennett R. and Rogers J. Bailey ~~ !~ 250 High Peaks Ranch Road ~'S%o~ 9a ~~ PO Box 251 ~~~%nga aeeja~~OJ Coaldale, Colorado 81222 Safea;;~ (~ ~ Letter of Protest Please do not allow.Holcim to re-open the Coaldale Gypsum Quarry. Re-opening the Coaldale Gypsum Quarry southwest of Coaldale is the reason for this letter of protest. Holcim's intentions are a clear threat to the value of my property and integrity of my home's foundation. My property is located on the northern boundary of the Coaldale Quarry. This property was mine property when it was in operation! Ina 1996 meeting with Ken Chlo, we were assured that it highly unlikely that this quarry would ever re- open. We have been betrayed! In January of 1996, I approached Ken Chlo (then the Coaldale Gypsum Quarry superintendent) with the inquiry of future operations in the mine. I had already been to Colorado Division of Reclamation to ascertain the status of Coaldale Gypsum Quarry, then owned by Domtar. They gave me the information I needed to contact Ken Chlo. He was then the only representative of Domtar who was in a position to discuss the mine operations. He told me that the mine'should never re-open, since the high quality gypsum had already been extracted. They were mostly finished terra-forming and planting trees. We and three other parties bought former mine property parcels with the understanding that Domtar would never re-open the mine. Since then three of us have built or began building our retirement homes on these parcels. Given that, our homes were engineered for a normal setting in these Colorado mountains. The Architects and engineers are required to engineer the foundations for these new homes to withstand various extremes. One of these extremes is the danger of earthquake. The standard in this area is one significant event over a period many years, (10 years, I believe). Blasting creates a small seismic event. Now Holcim, is telling us that we may have to withstand something between 128 and 220 separate seismic events in the next 32 years. Our house and foundation was not engineered for this extreme. Our properties, as well as being former mine property, are located on an uncomformable contact of unconsolidated recent sediments that lie very at a steep angle on top of the much older sediments that also are in the mine proper. The sediment that makes up the mine and surrounding hillsides dips steeply, and were faulted in all three dimensions