1993-11-05_GENERAL DOCUMENTS - C1981038

• Permit No: C1981038
• IBM Index Class Name: General Documents
• Doc Date: 11/5/1993
• Doc Name: Federal Lease Permit ‎(COC-53356)‎
• Permit Index Doc Type: Other Permits
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

• affected by surface disturbance to date. Including the
510-acre permit revision area, the total permitted area of
the Orchard Valley Mine will contain about 8659 acres.
Mining is expected to continue for 17 years under Colorado
Permit No. C-81-038 and the approved mining plan.
The original mining plan for the Orchard Valley Mine was
approved under the Federal lands program on December 21,
1981, for Federal lease C-25079 and C-27432 (containing
310. 5 acres and 854 acres, respectively) . A mining plan
modification was approved on April 28, 1983 that added a
160-acre lease modification area for Federal lease C-27432
and the 280-acre Federal lease D-036955. On August 10,
1984 , a mining plan adding 42 .5 acres of Federal lease
C-37210 was approved, and on November 25, 1985 the remainder
of the 4999-acre Federal lease C-37210 was approved in a
mining plan modification. BLM subsequently approved a minor
modification of the resource recovery and protection plan
(R2P2) for Federal lease C-37210 that added a 38 . 4-acre
lease modification area to the approved mining plan area.
On August 26, 1992 , a mining plan modification was approved
that allowed a 50% reduction in the coal recovery for the
Orchard Valley mine to ensure safe mining conditions. With
this mining plan action, the approved mining plan area for
the Orchard Valley Mine will contain a total of 7164 acres.
• The underground mining operations utilize room and pillar
mining methods. The Mesaverde Formation Upper Coal
Formation D coal seams are mined at an average production
rate of about 1.5 million tons per year. No additional
surface disturbance will result from this action except
mining-induced subsidence.
A chronology of events related to the processing of the PAP
is included with the decision document. The information in
the PAP, as well as other information identified in the
decision document, has been reviewed by Colorado DMG staff
in coordination with the OSM Project Leader.
During the review of the PAP, no major issues were
identified.
The public was notified of the availability of the PAP for
review by publication of newspaper notices for four
consecutive weeks, with a last publication date of June 9,
1993 . No public comments on the PAP were received after the
public notice was published.