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"` <br />While paving a portion of the access road may be of some help <br />in reducing dust, the problem of coal falling off trucks and being <br />pulverized and tracked onto Highway 133 by coal trucks going <br />between the Bear No. 3 Mine and Somerset Mining Company's facility <br />has not been addressed. Coal from overloaded trucks will continue <br />to fall onto the access road, be washed onto Highway 133 and blown <br />about by traffic on the access road and the highway. <br />Adequate abatement might be accomplished by the use of <br />conveyors as part of an enclosed system. This would alleviate <br />most of the impacts associated with Somerset Mining Company's ~,,.r <br />operation, including minimizing truck traffic through the two, <br />lessening the possibility of an accident at the railroad crossing <br />and reduced air and noise pollution. <br />CONCLUSION <br />A series of technical revisions such as the one at issue here <br />can be used to gain approval, incrementally, for what are actually <br />major changes in operation having serious environmental and socio- <br />economic consequences. The situation can be analogized to the <br />misuse of the two acre exemption for mines which actually <br />functioned cumulatively and, although well in excess of two acres, <br />sought to avoid regulation. The proposed technical revision <br />should be denied until such time as the environmental impacts <br />created-by Somerset Mining Company's shipping coal into its <br />facility from other locations have been properly addressed. <br />-3- <br />