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DORCHESTER/FRUITA MINE company has ,just recently come into the state with application for a permit (Number 79-60.} The Dorchester Mine has made three preference right lease applications for federal coal lease with the Bureau of Land Management. These are lease application numbers CO-0127832, CO-0127833 and CO-0127834. These applications were among 20 that the Colorado BLM has forwarded to the Secretary of Interior for action. According to Richard Tate of the Colorado State Office; BLM, these leases could be issued anytime but, on the ocher hand, they may not be issued before 1980. Chuck Silengo, Company Official at Dorchester, stated they are expecting to get the lease. COMPLIANCE WITH INTERIM REGULATIONS SECTION 502 (a) PUBLIC LAW 95-87 717.11 AUTRORIZATIONS TO OPERATE The Fruica Mine did not have a permit to mine, from the Colorado Mined Land Board, at the time of [he inspection. A Notice of Violation, 79-V-1-11, was issued for the entire operation for operating without a permit. This notice was issued because a large part of the surface disturbance and most of the excavation and construction to operate the underground workings is already finished. The impacts of mining; i.e. disturbing surface soils and drainage ways, cutting highwalls into the cliff areas, and deposition of refuse has already taken place. Work on construction of a second face up fot the second portal in the Anchor Seam had also begun in spite of warninKs from state inspectors stating that the area was not not to be disturbed before the state permit was issued. The NOV was written with the stipulation that ao further work on the Anchor Seam face up be done until the state permits are received. Any further work on the Anchor Seam face up would constitute a failure to abate the NOV. A state permit must be obtained within 90 days co abate this violation. This operation has definitely exceeded exploration, as evidenced by the extensive mine facilites, mine ventilation equipment, crews of men working full time in underground shafts and the large refuse pile pushed off the bench. In some areas, topsoil has been stripped and stockpiled and diversion structures have been built. 717.14 BACKFILLING AND GRADING OF ROAD CUTS, MINE ENTRY AREA CUTS, AND OTHER SURFACE WORK AREAS .... All of the waste rock from the mine portals and rock from the area where the main bench was cut into the cliff have been pushed off the bench onto the outslope. Rack and waste material have filled the head of the drainage area downslope from the bench. The refuse embankment now fills the drainage up to the bench level. A Notice of Violation was issued for failure to retain all .. earth, rock and ocher mineral non-waste on the solid portion of existing new benches as required by 717.17 (a) (1). The operator was [old to get regulatory authority for the refuse pile or remove the pile from the drainage. The mine operators have hired a consultant to test stability factors of the refuse pile and to