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vicinity of the tie-across haul road. Common raptors are golden eagle, red-tailed hawk, great <br />homed owl, marsh hawk and American kestrel. Use by greater sand hill cranes occurs in the azea <br />of the tie-across haul road with an active staging area for these birds located approximately 0.75 <br />miles north of the road. <br />Cultural and Historic Resources <br />The applicant conducted a number of site-specific literature searches and archeological surveys <br />of the permit azea between 1979 and 1990. SCC has completed archaeological surveys of all <br />currently permitted and proposed areas associated with the extension. During these cultural <br />resource inventories, 10 sites and 5 isolated finds were identified. Of these only 2 were <br />considered significant; one rock art site with adjacent fire-rock and one potential lazge camp site. <br />The camp site will not be disturbed, and appropriate mitigation measures have been proposed for <br />the rock art/fire-rock sites. <br />Description of the Operations and Reclamation Plan <br />The Seneca II-W Mine is a surface mine operation. The mine is adip-slope, area strip mine <br />utilizing conventional dragline mining methods. The permit boundary of this application <br />encompasses two geographically separated areas; the mine area permit boundary and the tie-across <br />haul road permit boundary. The mine azea permit boundary includes three sepazate aeeas (north, <br />south and south extension) and associated facilities. The north block consists of the C and D Pits <br />and the south block consists of the A and B Pits. Mine Pits A,B, C, and D are oriented <br />perpendiculaz to the cropline and the coal in the mine pit area dips approximately 18 to 25%. A <br />single dragline will operate alternately within the north and south areas. All four pits will mine <br />the Wadge coal seam, from the cropline to approximately 100 feet in depth. <br />Mining in the south extension area was proposed in PR-2. Development of this area will proceed <br />directly from the fatal cut in the A pit. Mine pits and progressive development will occur pazallel <br />to the cropline. Mining will be constrained by the rapid increase in overburden depth as mining <br />progresses away from the cropline. The operation plan is addressed in detail in Volume 7, <br />Tab 12. <br />The 5 year permit term for the Seneca II-W permit is effective December 31, 1995, and allows <br />for mining operations to be conducted for recovery of the Wadge seam in the SE'/, Section 10, <br />SW'/a Section 14, E'/z Section 15, N'/z Section 22, Section 23, W'/z Section 26, W'/z Section 35 <br />and N''/z Section 34, TSN, R88W. There are currently no plans for recovery of the deeper Wolf <br />Creek seam in the permit area or the shallower Lennox seam. The permit application provides <br />detailed information on mining and reclamation operations, transportation routes, and hydrologic <br />controls for the mine. <br />Coal to be mined is owned by private interest and the Federal govemment. The Federal coal is <br />under lease to Seneca Coal Company. With PR 2, SCC will be adding approximately 925 acres <br />of Federal coal to the permit area. A small portion of coal to be mined in the southern portion of <br />Seneca II-W Findings Document 9 November 3, 1999 <br />