Laserfiche WebLink
2 <br />themselves with the first 30 years of mining, although American <br />Soda anticipates that this mine will operate indefinitely. <br />Anticipated start up date is in the autumn of 2000. <br />In short, American Soda proposes to develop a commercial solution <br />mining and processing operation producing 1.4 million tons of <br />sodium minerals annually. The project entails 3 maj~~r components <br />including: a solution mining well field and initial processing <br />facility in central Piceance Basin, Rio Blanco County, a final <br />processing facility at the inactive Unocal Shale Oil Upgrade <br />Facility 2.5 miles northwest of Parachute, Garfield County, CO, <br />and a pair of buried parallel pipelines to transport sodium <br />solutions from the Piceance mine site to the Parachute processing <br />site and return flows to provide recycled process water and <br />additional make up water to the Piceance mine operation (Fig. 1-1 <br />of Draft EIS). <br />Solution mining will involve dissolving and recovering bedded and <br />disseminated sodium minerals 1550 to 2200 feet below the surface. <br />Pressurized hot (300-400°F) water injected to the bzise of a well <br />bore begins the leaching process and culminates. in the formation <br />of a roughly cylindrical (225' radius x 600' deep) mine cavity <br />(see pp. 2-5 to 2-8). Recovered sodium bicarbonate solution will <br />be initially processed into a more stable sodium carbonate/sodium <br />bicarbonate solution at the Piceance processing facility and <br />piped to the Parachute facility as slurry. Sodium solutions <br />received from the mine will be processed to soda~ash and <br />commercial grade sodium bicarbonate at the Parachute facility. <br />Water will be recycled from the transport slurry an3 returned to <br />the mine site as injection water. Finished product will be <br />transported primarily by rail with a small amount shipped by <br />truck. <br />Piceance Mine Site <br />Mining would occur on BLM estate comprising 2 federal sodium <br />leases in the central Piceance Basin, 22 miles west-southwest of <br />Meeker, Colorado (Figure 2-la) The leases comprise about 4,084 <br />acres, of which, about 774 acres would be variously disturbed or <br />occupied over the 30-year mine life. <br />The well field would be composed of about 543 wells arranged in <br />six 5-year panels which would be developed sequentially through <br />the 30-year mine period (Fig 2-2 and Table 2-3) After an initial <br />startup period where about 26 wells would be drilled and mined at <br />once, it is anticipated that about 15 solution wells will be <br />drilled and put into production annually through mine life. <br />The extent of individual mine panels would vary from 125 to 209 <br />acres. Well field development will generally require that 2 mine <br />panels be active at any given time to ensure consistent • <br />production. Full development of a mine panel would entail the <br />