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December 31, 1995. All facilities were removed, backfilling and grading was <br />completed, and the disturbed areas were topsoiled, seeded and mulched. Mine-related <br />activities presently are focused on bond release, monitoring, and maintenance. The <br />mine currently has an application under review by the Division for final bond release for <br />all of the disturbed area except for 1.4 acres at the NW-1 ventilation shaft. <br />The majority of the mine facilities were located immediately south of the highway and <br />the Purgatoire River, near the mouth of Ciruela Canyon. Two ventilation shafts, mine <br />buildings, water tanks, portal, coal stockpiles, conveyors, and a coal truck loadout were <br />located in this area. Amine development waste pile was also constructed at the mouth <br />of Ciruela Canyon, immediately south of the rail line that crosses the permit area. <br />During active mining operations, the mine used both continuous miners and a 600-foot <br />longwall to extract coal from the Maxwell seam. Two longwall panels were mined south <br />of Highway 12. No longwall mining occurred under the highway or under the adjacent <br />Purgatoire River alluvial valley floor. However, development mining did occur under the <br />river and highway to allow access to reserves to the north of the highway. Two <br />complete longwall panels and a portion of a third panel were mined north of Highway <br />12. Thirty-one drill holes and shafts that penetrated the mine workings were converted <br />to an industrial land use to allow for methane gas extraction from the workings. This <br />conversion allows for orderly gas extraction without additional disturbance to the <br />environment and allows development of a resource that would otherwise go to waste. <br />The mine site is located in a plateau area, with elevations ranging from 7,000 to 7,600 <br />feet above mean sea level. Land use in the area consists of cropland and pastureland <br />on valley floors, and rangeland dominating the upland areas. Recently, development of <br />ranchettes and coal bed methane extraction has become an extended use of these <br />traditionally remote areas. <br />The Golden Eagle mine is located on the western limb of the Raton Basin. The Raton <br />Basin is a broad, asymmetric syncline, the axis of which trends generally north-south. <br />All mining activities occur in the Raton Formation where the Maxwell seam is located. <br />The Poison Canyon formation unconformably overlies the Raton Formation and has a <br />thickness of approximately 200 feet in the mine area. Unconsolidated Quaternary <br />alluvial and colluvial deposits overlie the Raton Formation in the low-lying areas. <br />The Raton Formation dips approximately two degrees east-northeast. The permit area <br />contains one steep, normal fault trending east-northeast with vertical displacement of <br />25 feet. <br />The rock strata in the region can contain groundwater, but are not a significant source <br />of water in the area of the mine. Typically bedrock groundwater is perched and usable <br />sources are unreliable for most uses. Igneous intrusions can cause impermeable <br />boundaries that act as barriers to groundwater migration. The Purgatoire River is the <br />main surface water drainage in the region. Its headwaters originate west of the mine in <br />