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Colony Shale Oil Project, Coloratlo MLRB Permit M-80.047 <br />2006 Affected Area Status Summary and Request for ReduGion in Affected Acreage <br />December f 3, 3006 <br />• Colony harvested shrub seeds and cuttings on the Colony property for several species not <br />readily available commercially, contracted a nursery in Buena Vista to grow seedlings from <br />these cuttings, then planted thousands of these seedlings <br />• Colony collected seed from two rare plants (Barnaby's Columbine and sedge fescue) and re- <br />established communities of these on site, in particular, successful communities of both in the <br />narrows below Middle Fork Dam <br />Colony inoculated shrub plantings with microrhyzal fungi to enhance shrub survival when <br />competing with more aggressive plants <br />As a result of the above described special practices and general overall success on the property, <br />Colony received the first annual Governor's Award for Reclamation in 1988. <br />3.0 Purpose of this Submittal <br />This filing seeks to obtain removal of 401 acres of the above described lands from the total <br />affected area, based on having implemented the steps described in the approved reclamation plan. <br />This filing also seeks to clarify the post-mining land use for a number of areas, based on a future <br />use as permanent roads or as industrial areas rather than the default agricultural or rangeland uses <br />assumed in the original permit application. Importantly, a different future land use for each of these areas <br />. was contemplated and specifically mentioned in the original permit application. These areas total 228 <br />acres, comprised as follows: <br />• Middle Fork Dam and Reservoir (7 acres) <br />• the access roads on and off-site (107 acres} <br />• the Parachute TerminaUStaging Area (96 acres), and <br />• the River Water Intake site at the Colorado River (18 acres) <br />In all of these cases, the curcent condition of the land is consistent with the proposed permanent <br />land-use. <br />Because the alternate future land use was already mentioned in the original permit application, it <br />is not clear that this is in fact eland-use change. However, this clarification to permanent industrial use <br />will remove any ambiguity on that issue. <br />Altogether, this filing seeks to remove 629 acres from the total affected acreage of 1,127 acres <br />described in the 1982 ISP. No change is proposed for the 4 acres added since the 1982 ISP (3 acres in <br />1987 at the ESR Test Plots site and 1 acre of alternate access road at the south property line in 2000) but <br />the current total affected area is 1,127 plus 4, totaling 1,131 acres prior to this filing. <br />A summary table that describing current and planned status for areas described in the 1982 ISP <br />is attached presented as Table 1. <br />The details relating to each area, including what was established as the approved reclamation <br />plan and what has been accomplished are presented in an area-by-area discussion in the following <br />sections. All numeric references to areas (e.g. Area SA} and acreages are taken from the 1982 Interim <br />Site Plan, which was treated by the MLRB as an amendment. In the discussion that follows, reference is <br />. made to Exhibits prepared for this filing, included as Appendix A. Most these have been copied from <br />drawings previously filed in various amendment applications or annual reports to the MLRB. For <br />reference, the source of each Exhibit used in this filing is included as a note near the title block on each <br />exhibit. Because this filing may in some cases be viewed as a technical revision, all of these exhibits are <br />designated with apre-fix "F", which would correspond to a reclamation plan map. <br />