Laserfiche WebLink
_22_ <br />None of these changes, including salt loading, would be significant <br />enough to affect surface water usage. Surface water quality would <br />still be well below recommended stock water standards for total <br />dissolved solids (7000 mg/1). Affected surface waters, like the <br />baseline waters, would classify as medium salinity, low alkali <br />hazard irrigation waters. <br />Surface water chemistry should return to baseline conditions after <br />pH dewatering has ceased, the pits have been backfilled,~graded, <br />and topsoiled, and sediment ponds are removed. <br />As can be seen from the analysis presented here, the combined <br />hydrologic impacts of the three North Park mines to surface water <br />will be negligible, under a worst case scenario. <br />Effect on Ground Water <br />Both the Wyoming Fuel and Kerr mines are located on the flanks of the <br />McCallum Anticline and the Johnny Moore Syncline, and thus, are <br />hydrogeologically adjacent. The Bourg Strip Mine is hydrogeologically <br />separated from the Johnny Moore Syncline by the Ballinger Anticline. <br />Ground water flow through the rock strata from the Kerr and Wyoming Fuel <br />mines will be to the southeast down the plunge of the McCallum anticlinal <br />axis. Ground water flow through the rock strata from the Bourg Mine will <br />be to the northwest down the plunge of the Bourg synclinal axis. <br />Upper terrace alluvial deposits have been eroded away in the Bourg <br />life-of-mine area and thus, the operation will not cumulatively impact <br />the quantity and quality of ground water in this aquifer. <br />The Kerr Coal mine and the Wyoming Fuel mine will affect the quality and <br />quantity of water within the Sudduth coal, underburden and overburden. <br />The quantity of water will be affected by mining out the outcrop-recharge <br />areas of these strata and by the decreased infiltration rates of the <br />reclaimed surfaces compared with the natural surfaces. The quality of <br />ground water will be degraded by the exposure of ground water to <br />fractured and fragmented spoil material. The decreased quantity of <br />ground water and the degradation of ground water will not affect the <br />beneficial use of ground water on- and off-site, since no wells are <br />completed in affected strata. <br />Surface runoff will be slightly increased due to the lower infiltration <br />rates over reclaimed surfaces. There is only one spring issuing from the <br />strata affected by mining (i.e., the Sudduth seam), and this is Located <br />at the northernmost extent of the Kerr mine. The flow from this seep is <br />insignificant in relation to the surface water flow in Sudduth Draw. <br />The spoil aquifer which forms in the reclaimed mine pits will have <br />recharge and discharge characteristics similar to those of the <br />undisturbed strata. Since no significant springs are issuing from the <br />strata to be mined through, and since the elevation of the pit bottoms <br />