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Currently, total annual coal production has been capped at about 5 million tons per year. <br />Approval of Permit Revision No. 6 would increase that limit to 6 million tons per year. <br />The mine facilities have been constructed near the old Bowie townsite. Construction has <br />occurred to develop haul and access roads, a conveyor belt system, mine and facility benches, <br />vent shafts, a truck loadout facility, a refuse pile, and various drainage and sediment control <br />facilities. Approval of Permit Revision No. 3 added a downhill conveyor, coal stockpile and coal <br />haul truck loading system to the facilities. In addition, the mine site entrance was relocated to the <br />east of the original entrance. Coal is currently being exported from the truck loadout facility onto <br />old State Highway 133 and, then, to the Bowie No. 1 Mine train loadout. Approval of Permit <br />Revision No. 6 permitted the construction of a unit train loadout. <br />A drainage and sediment control system has been constructed. The system consists of ditches, <br />culverts, sedimentation ponds and alternate sediment control areas referred to as "small area <br />exemptions". Specific details regarding the designs for these systems aze presented in Section <br />2.05, as are references to other sections of the permit application document which present <br />additional design details. <br />For the currently approved operations, all available topsoil has been salvaged and stored prior to <br />facility construction. Approval of Permit Revision No. 6 permitted a variance From salvaging all <br />of the topsoil at the train loadout coverfill stockpile. BRL will salvage the top two to three inches <br />of topsoil and then will place geotextile fabric on the coverfill area. Soil from the cut operations <br />for the train loadout will, then, be placed on top of this geotextile material. Salvaged topsoil from <br />the facilities areas was placed in a topsoil storage pile which has a capacity of approximately <br />270,000 cubic yards. Topsoil which was salvaged prior to the refuse pile construction was stored <br />in another pile which has an approximate storage capacity of 3,111 cubic yards. Specific details <br />regarding the topsoil salvage volumes are presented on Page 2.05-34 of the Bowie No. 2 Mine <br />permit application. <br />Some surface blasting occurred during construction of the facilities. Details regarding the <br />blasting plan are presented within Section 2.05 of the permit application. <br />The Bowie No. 2 Mine is located in areas known to be subject to mass movement processes. <br />Extensive design efforts and regulatory review were implemented prior to the approval of the <br />Bowie No. 2 Mine and during the review of Permit Revision No. 3. The details regarding the <br />geotechnical aspects of the mining and reclamation plan are presented within Volume VII of the <br />permit application document. <br />The Bowie No. 2 Mine will be reclaimed to the post-mining land uses of rangeland, wildlife <br />habitat and industrial. The approval of Permit Revision No. 6 added cropland and pastureland to <br />the post-mining land uses. All facilities azeas and some roads will be reclaimed to reestablish the <br />approximate original contour of the land. All portals, shafts and monitoring wells will be <br />backfilled, in accordance with the applicable rules and with the reclamation details provided <br />within the permit application. Some of the roads which existed prior to mining will be retained to <br />serve the postmining land use. <br />17 <br />