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access and ventilation, mine buildings and coal handling structures and a coal refuse pile. The three portal entries are located approximately 800 feet above Old State Highway 133. The main haul road and benches required extensive cut and fill operations. Surface blasting was necessary for some of the cut operations. During construction of the portal face-up, there was a failure of the cut face, probably due to an overly steep cut wall. The slide area above the portals had to be excavated and stabilized by extending the portal entries out with multiplate tubes and backfilling the cut slope at a lesser gradient. The design changes were approved in Minor Revision No. 4. The mine extracts coal from the D-2 coal seam at an anticipated maximum annual production of 2 million tons per year. The mains are oriented to the northwest while the submains, except for a small westwazd submain, run in an eastward direction from the mains. The original mining method was conventional room and pillar retreat mining. However, Bowie Resources obtained approva( in the fall of 1999, through Permit Revision No. 2, for longwall operations. Coal is brought out of the mine and is sized and stockpiled on the portal bench. Coal is loaded into haul trucks on the portal bench by front end loader and taken to the Bowie No. 1 train loadout, located about 3 miles west of the Bowie No. 2 mine site, for unloading and shipping by rail. At the time of the writing of this midterm review, the Division has proposed a decision to approve Permit Revision No. 3. Through this revision, BRL proposes to increase production to 5 million tons per yeaz and build a conveyor that would take coal from the portal bench down to a coal stockpile and haul truck loading system. The original mine plan has been modified several times. Through Technical Revision No. 8, the West Pod was added to the mine plan. Because access to the West Pod was across a fault and because there was difficulty constructing the rock slope tunnel through the fault, BRL has put the mining of the West Pod on hold. In Technical Revision No. 9, BRL modified the mine plan in order to do development mining in federal coal, after acquisition of Federal right-of--way COC-62688. The mine plan was altered by extending the mains further to the northwest and completing the D2 headgate development mining. The bleeder entries on the east side of the mine were also added to the mine plan in this revision. This revision added 79 acres to the northwest comer of the permit azea, 59 acres of private surface and 20 acres of federal surface. The mine plan was also changed in order to provide ventilation for the longwall panels. The construction of the ventilation shaft on the water tank bench was approved in Technical Revision No. 5. Minor Revision No. 13 approved the construction of the ventilation entries that allow mine air to get from the longwall panels to the vent shaft. At the time of the writing of this midterm review, BRL has submitted a new technical revision that, if approved, would alter the mine plan again. In Technical Revision No. 13, BRL proposes to develop the D3 headgate and extend the mains and the bleeders to the north, after BRL gets approval for an amendment to the Federal right-of--way COC-62688.