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-7- Operations and Reclamation Plan The mine is currently operating under Permit No. C-023-81. The Chimney Rock Coal Mine is a surface mining operation. Both mineral and surface ownership are private and federal for the areas currently permitted. The coal in the Permit Revision No. 2 area is under lease by the applicant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Mel Martinez and Helen Tabor. The owners of record for the land surface in the Permit Revision No. 2 area are the U.S. Forest Service, Mel Martinez, and Helen Tabor. Of the 99 acres to be permitted, 13 acres of federal coal and 1 acre of private coal will be mined, and a total of 44 acres will be disturbed. There are 40 acres of federally leased coal proposed to be permitted under this permit revision. An additional 16 acres will be disturbed on the surface of the U.S. Forest Service Special Use area to the south of the area to be mined. Surface facilities for the Deep Creek area will consist of an office, shop, parts trailer, scales, fuel tanks, truck turn-around, coal crusher, and drainage control system. There is one major road on the site which will be a combination access/haul road. The road intersects Highway 151 east of the main entrance to the Chimney Rock Mine. Coal removal operations involve complete extraction of the "A" and "B" seams by open pit mining in the Deep Creek area to the economic limits determined by the coal/overburden ratio and permit boundaries. Auger mining will be utilized to increase the coal recovery in the east and south highwalls of the Permit Revision No. 2 area. Mining operations begin by first removing all woody vegetation with bulldozers. Topsoil and subsoil are then windrowed with a bulldozer. Soil material is then loaded into haul trucks and transported to topsoil stockpile areas or respread on regraded areas. Once all vegetation and soil material has been removed, the overburden is benched and leveled by bulldozers. Following this operation, the overburden is then drilled and blasted. The shot overburden is then loaded into trucks and hauled to the adjacent spoil area. Box cut material will be permanently disposed of in an excess spoil dump located on the Forest Service Special Use Area immediately south of the pit area. After the overburden is removed and the "A" coal seam is exposed, the coal is removed. The coal removal operation requires two steps. First, a motor grader is used to clean the coal surface. Once the coal is cleaned, it is ripped with a track-type dozer. The loose coal is then loaded into trucks and hauled to the coal crushing area. The above sequence describing overburden and coal removal is repeated to remove the underlying "B" seam. Auger mining takes place after the highwall has been stripped to its economic limit.