ENFORCE32012

• Permit No: C1980007
• IBM Index Class Name: Enforcement
• Doc Date: 3/26/1998
• Doc Name: MOUNTAIN COAL WATER REPORT
• From: DMG
• To: DAVID BERRY
• Violation No.: CV1997022
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

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STATE OF COLORA9D0
DIVISION OF MINERALS AND GEOLOGY
Department of Natural Resources
1313 Sherman SI.. Room 215 JI~1
Denver, Colorado 80203 I Ir
Phone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]I 06
DEPARTMENT OF
INTERNAL MEMO ~so~RC S
Roy Romer
TO: David Berry /~/~~~ ~/ 26 March 1998 co~ernor
4 ~' !~i~~l~ lames 5. Lochhead
'aJ,~ Ecpcmrve Duecmr
FROM: Jim Burnell •" Michael 8. Long
Division Dupcmr
SUBJ: Mountain oat Water Report
Several main points were made in the Mayo report to Mountain Coal Company and in the Mayo
presentation to the CDMG on 21 January 1998 as evidence that water issuing from the spring at
the Edwards Portal is not the same water that was Bumped upgradient from the spring by
Mountain Coal Company. In the verbal presentation, it appeared to me that Dr Mayo's main
lines of evidence involved the major element chemistry of the waters, particularly the sodium ion
content of the two waters, and the carbon isotope composition of Edwards Portal spring vs
Bumped waters. We conclude that these lines of evidence do not shots that the spring water is not
related to the sump water.
Sodium Concentrations
The water in the NW panels sump was derived from mine inflow from several faults intersected
during mining operations. One of the lines of argument used to show that the Edwards Portal
spring water is not the same water as Bumped water, is the differences in the Na-ion content of
the waters from the spring and those from the various faults. The contention is that water
emanating from the Edwards Portal contains significantly less Na' than the fault waters and a
mechanism to reduce that Na could not have operated to affect the water between the time and
location of the two points of analysis.
(1) There really isn't much difference in the sodium contents.
It is the Division's contention that the Na-content of the Edwards Portal Spring water is not
considerably less than that of the fault waters. Individual analyses of "in-mine fault samples"
yield values of Na that range from 717 mg/L to l 175 ntg/L. (The range can be expressed in
millequivalents as 31.2 to 51.1 meq/I..) That compares to a single analysis from [he Edwards
portal spring of 75~ mg/L (32.8 meq/L), a value at the low end, but still within the range
represented in the fault waters. The sodium content of portal spring water agrees completely
with B East Mains fault water.
So the first rebuttal of the sodium argument is simply that the sodium content isn't different.