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As to any mining operation, the Division looks to two financial sources <br />available to ensure that reclamation occurs as mandated by the Coal Act and its <br />regulations: (1) the operator is financially and otherwise capable of performing and <br />completing reclamation and\or (2) the performance bond that ensures that reclamation <br />will be accomplished is forfeited and the funds are used to conduct reclamation. If <br />these two sources of funds evaporate, [here is a good possibility that reclamation will <br />not occur and if it does occur, the cost of reclamation would be paid by the taxpayers <br />of Colorado. <br />In the present matter, Powderhor received a petmit to mine coal in 1981. <br />From 1981 to 1999, Powderhor extracted coal and disturbed hundreds of acres of <br />land during its extraction operations. Powderhom chose to cease operations in <br />December 1999. Now Powderhom is in bankruptcy, with no financial means to <br />reclaim its site. In addition, the bond Powderhom submitted pursuant to its statutory <br />obligation as an operator is out of regulatory compliance. <br />Thus, this Board is faced with is an operator that is bankrupt with no financial <br />resources to accomplish reclamation and with a surety that could at any moment be <br />forced into liquidation in its home state of New York, which would mean that the <br />Division would stand in line with hundreds of other creditors. What Powderhom's <br />arguments propose is leaving the Division and the Board with nothing more than <br />empty promises. Accordingly, the Division requests that the Board reject <br />