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III III'll'I~"II'll 999 _ Q}v,_ ry ~~ '~ m w o ~ a ` 4 . MACH 7 ~~' IN REPLY REFFJt M ^~ o CJA,<v ~A . \~ United States Department of the Interior OFFICE OF SURFACE MIPiING Reclamation and Enforcement 1999 Broadway, Suite 3320 Denver, Colorado 80202-5733 Ff E C E I V E D August 24, 1998 Ann Tatum Iim Tatum & Associates 8703 Bonhomme Houston, Texas 77074 Dear Ms. Tatum: AUG 2 51998 This is a response to your July 20, 1998, letter to me and Kathy Karpan, the Director of the Office of Surface Mining (OSM). You also addressed the letter to Senator Phil Graham and Michael Long, Dvector of the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (DMG). You expressed dissatisfaction with the OSM and DMG response to the citizen complaint you filed in November 1993. In that complaint, you asserted that the land surface overlying Basin Resources' Golden Eagle underground coal mine subsided and caused damage to your house. By letter dated September 18, 1995, I conveyed OSM's conclusion on the matter. Citing lengthy and thorough investigation of the matter by both OSM and DMG experts, I determined that OSM and DMG had taken appropriate action when they concluded that your house is not within an area where the Golden Eagle mine subsidence occurred. On October l2, 1995, you fded with the U.S. Department of the Interior Boazd of Land Appeals an appeal of my decision. No decision has yet been made on this appeal. You refer to a civil trial judgment, which I understand included a damage award for diminution of the value of your home [hat was attributed to subsidence. In your letter, you imply that the basis for this judgment was a Basin Resources survey of your house that indicated subsidence damage had occurred. Because the survey results were available to OSM at the time of my September 18, 1995, letter, you question why I affu-ated DMG's conclusion that subsidence damage had not occurred to your house. As a matter of record, I was aware of the survey results prior to my decision. I sent them to you by letter dated August 1, 1995. The survey results do not in fact indicate that subsidence damage occurred to your house. You state that OSM did not properly utilize the Surface Deformation Prediction System (SDPS) model. The fact is the underground extraction closest to your home did not cause any subsidence to the land surface since it was anon-retreat, room-and-pillar type extraction with a calculated coal extraction ratio of 34 percent. OSM utilized the SDPS model only to demonstrate to you that even if the mine had extracted a much higher percentage of coal there still would have been no subsidence in the location of your house. OSM concluded that no subsidence occurred. Its conclusion was based on this type of room and pillar mining, which had nothing to do with the SDPS model.