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III IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 999 STATE OF COLORADO DIVISION OF MINERALS AND GEOLOGY Department of Natural Resources 1 J13 Sherman 51., Room 2I5 Denver, Colorado ft112U1 Phone: (30J1 ftbb-3567 Fnx:~J(~{~,~}?-ftlob December 19, 1996 TO: Larry Routten~n FROM: Dan Mathews ,/Ji~- RE: NOV C-96-019 Penalty Assessment Deserado Mine (C-81-018) ~~ r~~~ DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES Roy Romer Governor lames S. Lochhead 6ecw ive Dueaor Michael B. Long Drvnion Director Enclosed is some additional information for the Assessment Officer to consider with regard to the referenced assessment. The deadline for the assessment is next Friday, December 27. I terminated the violation during my inspection of December 18. I issued a modification to the NOV on Dec. 19, to include the discharge exceedance citation, and to reflect the fact that the NOV should have been issued to Western Fuels-Utah, because the pending permit transfer had not been completed. The abatement work had been completed when I inspected the site on December 18. The operator had notified me on December 2 that the work was completed on that date. William Lepro, the certifying engineer indicated that he conducted his inspection on December 3. The repaired connection joint had been re-buried when I inspected on the 18th. I have enclosed the certification letter, correspondence between Kathleen Sullivan of WQCD and myself, and a water sample analysis submitted by the operator. Note that the sample I took indicated a T55 level of 127 mg/1, which is in excess of the 70 mg/1 discharge standard, and approximately twice as high as the sample taken by Gordon Bell. The likely reason for this discrepancy is that Mr. Bell's sample was taken at 8 a.m., prior to initiation of pumping operations, while my sample was taken at 10:50 a.m., after pumping had been initiated--which probably stirred things up a bit. The operator took prompt actions to resolve the problem by pumping water from RP-1 to other ponds with available capacity, when the problem was observed on November 25, and initiated this effort prior to my initial inspection on November 26. The pond had been pumped down and was no longer discharging when I re-visited the site on the afternoon of November 27. The operator has had no violations in the past year.