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<br />A. Proposed Action <br />Western Fuels-Utah (WF-U)has applied for an emergency bypeiss lease <br />adjacent and contiguous to its Logical Hining Unit (LHU) at the: Deserado <br />Hine, Rio Blanco County, Colorado, in accordance with Title 43 CFR <br />4325-Leasing on Application. <br />The lands applied for are described as follows: <br />T.2N., R.lO1W. Section 1: Lots 1, 2, 5, and 6. S4J1/4NE1/4, <br />W1/2SE1/4NE1/4, N1/2SE1/4. <br />T.3N., R.lO1W., Section 36: SW1/4SE1/4, W1/2SE1/4SE1/4 <br />The above described lands contain approximately 344 acres (Figure 2). <br />The Deserado Mine is an underground mine using longwall and continuous <br />miner methods for coal extraction. This mine operates within the: Deserado <br />Hine LHU which is contiguous to the lease application area. The mine is <br />the fuel supply portion of the Bonanza Power Plant project. Other parts <br />of the Bonanza Power Plant project are the Bonanza Station, a 400 megawatt <br />coal fired power plant; the Deseret-Western Railway, a captive railway <br />which moves coal from the mine to the power plant; and high voltage <br />transmission system. The Deserado Mine is the only fuel supplier to the <br />Bonanza Station and its rate of coal production is dictated by the Euel <br />requirements of the station. During the next 5 years the mine is <br />scheduled to produce approximately 1.2 million clean tons annually. <br />The lease application area will allow the extension of currently planned <br />longwall panels into federally owned coal which will be rendered <br />unrecoverable (bypassed) if not mined in conjunction with the Deserado <br />Hine plan. WF-U has estimated the recoverable coal reserves for the lease <br />application area based on site specific resource data and WF-U`s proposed <br />mining plan. <br />WF-U has identified eight (8) coal seams which are correlatable over at <br />least a portion of the Deserado Hine LMU area. Of the eight seams, only <br />coal contained in the B and D seams is of adequate thickness to be <br />considered minable. The D seam has a higher clean coal reserve potential <br />than does the B seam. Therefore, mining in the D seam is a priority and B <br />seam coal is considered nonrecoverable. <br />Exploration conducted during 1985 and 1986, revealed the presence of a <br />substantial parting in the "D" seam which renders the area east of the <br />lease application boundary unminable. This parting splits the "D" into <br />two beds and forms a barrier to mining further east. The split in the "D" - -- <br />seam makes this area unminable as part of the Prairie Dog Lease Tract. It <br />was decided by the BLH Colorado State Office that only the "D" seam would <br />be included in the proposed Lease. <br />This proposed amendment to the mine plan will not only allow recovery of <br />coal in the bypass lease application area, it will also allow greater <br />recovery of the reserves in Lease C-023703 by extending the longwall <br />panels into the bypass lease application area. The mine plan would then <br /> <br />4 <br />