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CRAPTfRONE Purpose of the Final EIS • 1.1 INTRODUCTION This Final EIS represents an addition to the Yankee Gulch Sodium Minerals Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in January ] 999. This document meets the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by incorporating information requests, added analyses, and responses to comments received on the Draft EIS. The Final EIS should not be considered as a complete EIS, or as a complete decision document. Because this is an abbreviated Final EIS, this document and the Draft EIS comprise the entire document for filing purposes and for the decision making process. This Final EIS contains the following: • Revised Executive Summary • Descriptions of a new alternative -Agency Preferred Alternative • New analysis of environmental consequences of the new alternative • Responses to comments received on the Draft EIS • Revisions of the Draft EIS text • Comments letters and Public Hearing transcripts • New appendices containing copies of American Soda's mitigation and monitoring plans 1.2 PROJECT OVERVIEW The Yankee Gulch Sodium Minerals Project (Yankee Gulch Project), operated by American Soda, L.L.P. (American Soda), is a proposed nahcolite solution mining operation neaz Meeker, Colorado, with associated processing facilities neaz Parachute, Colorado. The two sites would be connected by an approximately 44-mile pipeline corridor containing a product pipeline and a parallel return water pipeline (Figure 1-1). The Yankee Gulch Project would involve a 30-yeaz mining operation with vertical solution mining wells to extract naturally occurring bedded and disseminated nahcolite deposits in the Piceance Creek Basin. Nahcolite would be mined under American Soda's Yankee Gulch Joint Venture Leases (U.S. Sodium Lease Nos. C-0118328 and C-0118329). The nahcolite solution would be processed into two principal products: sodium bicazbonate (baking soda) and sodium cazbonate (soda ash). American Soda has operated a test mining facility since 1996 and submitted a Commercial Mine Plan to the BLM in August 1998. The BLM is required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Council on Environmental Quality directives to analyze potential effects on the environment from proposed actions involving federal land and leases (40 CFR 1500-1508). The proposed Project Area occupies portions of Rio Blanco and Garfield counties. The entire Piceance Site and most of the northern part of the project pipeline corridor aze located on BLM lands. The southern part of the project pipeline comdor and the Parachute Site aze iocated on • private property. 1-1