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The applicant provided copies of permits for the Roadside and Cameo mines which were obtained in December, 1976 and January, 1977. Therefore, those lands permitted are eligible for the "grandfather" exemption. These lands include those portions of the permit area within Sections 27, 28, 33 and 34, T10S, R98W. This area includes the entire affected alluvial valley floor, with the exception of that portion in Section 26. However, that portion of Section 26 within the permit area as noted in Exhibit 33 was disturbed as part of construction of the unit train loadout in 1977 and therefore is eligible for the "grandfathering" exemption. In addition, this exempted area includes all the area disturbed by the proposed operation. Alluvial Valley Floor - Findings Those portions of the permit area within Sections 26, 27, 28, 33 and 34 are exempt from the requirements that prevent an operation from interrupting, discontinuing, or precluding farming, and from effecting the quantity and quality of water supplying the alluvial valley floor. This area will not be discussed in the following findings. However, this area is not exempt from the requirements for restoring the essential hydrologic functions of the alluvial valley floor which will be discussed below. All of the non-exempt alluvial valley floor is located outside the permit area within Section 26 and 27. 1. No portion of the non-exempt alluvial valley floor is presently disturbed by the mining operation. A small portion of this area is indicated as being historically flood irrigated on Exhibit 33. There are no plans to disturb any additional land on the alluvial valley floor. Therefore, the proposed coal mining operation will not interrupt, discontinue, or preclude farming on the alluvial valley floor. 2. As previously discussed, a portion of the non-exempt alluvial valley floor was historically flood irrigated. In addition, a portion is subirrigated. The remaining area is potentially flood irrigable. Surface waters which could be and were used to irrigate the non-exempted alluvial valley floor would be diverted from the Highline Canal. Water in the Highline Canal is diverted from the Colorado River approximately one mile upstream of the disturbance. The Highline Canal will not be affected by subsidence or by mine discharges. Therefore, the quantity and quality of surface water which supplies the AVF would not be affected by the proposed operations. Discharge from the Roadside and Cameo mines will have a minor salt loading effiect on the Colorado River. The affect on the water quality from this discharge will be to increase the specific conductance and total dissolved solids about 0.1%. This, in turn, would have a minor effect on the water which supplies the subirrigated portion of the AVF, since recharge water from the adjacent Colorado River is the source of alluvial ground water which subirrigates the AVF. -21-