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<br />Mid-Term Review <br /> <br />Bear Mines No. 1, 2, and 3, Permit No. C-81-033 <br />This document presents the results of the Divisions mid-term <br />review for the Bear Mine. This review was conducted to fulfill the <br />requirements of Rules 2.08.3, 2.06.2(9), 2.06.3(4), 2.06.5(3), <br />2.06.7(5) and 3.02.2(4). <br />Rule 2.08.3 requires that the Division conduct a review of each <br />permit issued prior to its mid-term. Based on this review, for <br />good cause shown, the Division may require reasonable revision or <br />modification of the permit provisions to ensure compliance with the <br />Act and Regulations. <br />Rules 2.06.2, 2.06.3, 2.06.5 and 2.06.7 require that experimental <br />practices, mountaintop removal variances, variances from AOC, and <br />variances from contemporaneous reclamation be reviewed by the <br />Division where applicable. The Bear Mine does conduct operations <br />under one of these categories as discussed in section V of this <br />document. <br />Rule 3.02(4) requires that the Division review the amount of the <br />bond and the terms of acceptance of the bond every 2 1/2 years. <br />This is covered in Section III on this document. <br />The review consisted of a review of all previous findings documents <br />associated with the mine, all previous mid-term reviews, annual <br />reclamation reports, revisions, stipulations, phased bond releases <br />and the annual hydrology reports. In addition to this, the field <br />inspection reports were reviewed. <br />The document is organized as follows: Section I includes a brief <br />history of the mine. Section II includes a summary of any changes <br />or revisions that need to be made to the permit and the <br />justification for those changes. Section III summarizes any <br />revisions to the permit since the last renewal and lists any <br />stipulations and responses since renewal. Section IV discusses the <br />current state of the bond liability and reclamation bond for the <br />Bear Mines No. 1, 2 and 3. And finally, section V discusses <br />variances from approximate original contour. <br />I. History <br />The Bear Mines No. 1, 2 and 3 are owned and operated by the Bear <br />Coal Company. The No. 3 mine is the only active mine as Mines 1 <br />and 2 have been reclaimed and are currently in the bond release <br />process. Bear Coal Company is permitted to produce 500,000 tons of <br />coal from the B-seam under Federal Coal Leases No. C-0117192 and a <br />small section of Atlantic Richfield Company fee coal. The permit <br />area is located within the drainage of the North Fork of the <br />Gunnison River just south of the town of Somerset, Colorado, <br />