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Mining, LLC, other private entities and federal agencies. <br />Surface facilities are located in the Elk Creek, Beaz Creek, Hubbazd Creek and Sanborn Creek <br />drainages on the north side of the North Fork of the Gunnison River. Mining areas include <br />workings under the Hubbard, Elk, Bear Creek and Coal Gulch drainages. Proposed workings in <br />the Sanbom Creek East Tract will undermine A, B, C and Hoopla Gulches, Bardine Canyon, <br />Hawk's Nest Creek and an unnamed tributary of Thompson Creek. Hubbazd Creek is a perennial <br />tributary of the North Fork and provides both domestic and agricultural supplies of water. Beaz <br />Creek, Elk Creek and Sanbom Creek are intermittent streams. Coal Gulch, the unnamed <br />drainage, A, B and C Gulches, Hawk's Nest Creek, Hoopla Gulch, Bazdine Canyon and <br />Thompson Creek are all ephemeral drainages that flow to the North Fork. <br />The North Fork River Basin is a highly developed water supply which provides agricultural <br />water to the fruit-growing region of the North Fork Valley. The North Fork River enters the <br />main stem of the Gunnison River approximately 30 miles southwest of the Somerset Mine. The <br />drainage basin of the North Fork is mountainous, bounded to the west by the Raggeds, the Ruby <br />Range, to the east by the Huntsman Ridge, to the South by the West Elk Mountains, and to the <br />North by Grand Mesa. Elevations in the basin range from 13,058 feet atop Mt. Owen in the <br />Ruby Range, to 5,100 feet at the confluence of the North Fork with the Gunnison River. The <br />town of Somerset, Colorado, immediately adjacent to the Somerset Mine site, is at an elevation <br />of 6,045 feet. <br />Ground reconnaissance during 1978, 1979 and 1980 identified Elk No. 1 Spring as the one <br />location with ground water surfacing within the original Somerset permit area, with a flow rate of <br />less than one gallon per minute. It is concluded that there is no large ground water reservoir in <br />the area. <br />Western Slope Carbon identified and monitored 11 springs within or adjacent to the Sanborn <br />East Tract. Monitoring records are available from 1983 through 1987. Somerset Mining <br />Company, now Oxbow Mining, LLC, resumed monitoring these springs in July 1992. Springs 1 <br />through 6 are located along the north boundary of the Sanbom East Tract in the northern portion <br />of Section 2. Springs 7 through 11 are located along the southern boundary of the new tract. The <br />locations of the springs are shown on map 2.04-M5. <br />The topography of the region is characterized by steep canyons cut by the North Fork and its <br />tributaries, with several remnant alluvial terraces above the valley of the North Fork. Proceeding <br />downstream below Somerset, Colorado, the canyon widens. At Paonia, Colorado, the canyon has <br />given way to a broad alluvial plain with interspersed remnant alluvial terraces. The coal to be <br />mined is located in the Somerset Coal Field. The strata exposed in the Somerset Coal Field <br />consist of the Mancos Shale and the coal-bearing Mesaverde Formation of Upper Cretaceous <br />Age, and of the Ohio Creek Conglomerate, the Wasatch Formation and the Quartz Monzonite <br />Porphyry of Early Tertiary Age (Figure 2). Coal is mined from the Mesaverde Formation, a <br />2,500 foot thick sequence of sedimentary strata overlain by the Ohio Creek Conglomerate and <br />underlain by the Mancos Shale. The strata in the Sanborn Creek Mine permit ~u•ea dip three to <br />