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~.• <br />Introduction <br />This document is the proposed decision findings document for Technical Revision No. 18 (TR- <br />18), prepared by the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (Division) for the Bowie No. 2 <br />Mine. TR-I8 proposes a change in the mine plan in order to allow longwall mining in federal and <br />private coal on the western ends of the D2 and the D3 panels. The federal coal to be mined is <br />part of the approved Iron Point Tract Federal Coal Lease COC 61209. This mine plan change <br />would allow the mining of about 904,000 tons of private coal and 286,000 tons of federal coal. <br />Ordinarily, a findings document would not be prepared for the proposed decision of a technical <br />revision. However, approval of TR-18 would allow limited longwall mining in federal coal. <br />Because of this importance, this findings document has been written specifically for this <br />technical revision. <br />The Review Process <br />The initial TR-l8 submittal, dated September 7, 2000, was presented by Bowie Resources <br />Limited (BRL) and received at the Division on September 8, 2000. TR-18 was called complete <br />on September 11, 2000. The Division sent out completeness letters on that same date. The public <br />notice of completeness was published in the Delta Cou~rty Independent on September 13, 2000. <br />None of the government agencies that had been sent completeness letters had any concerns with <br />TR-18. These agencies included the Colorado Historical Society, the Colorado Division of <br />Wildlife, the Colorado Division of Water Resources, the Bureau of Land Management, the <br />United States Forest Service, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) and the <br />Office of Surface Mining (OSM). <br />On October 11, 2000, the Division received a letter, dated October 11, 2000, in which the OSM <br />stated that the Mining Plan Decision Document being prepared for Technical Revision No. 16 <br />(TR-16) would apply to those activities proposed in TR-18. As a consequence, no consultation <br />with the USF&WS and no separate mine plan action would be needed for TR-18. <br />The Western Slope Environmental Resource Council (WSERC) also received a completeness <br />letter but had no comments. There were no comments from the general public as well. <br />The Division performed its adequacy review of the TR-18 submittal. However, no adequacy <br />problems were found. The proposed decision to approve was made on October 11, 2000. The <br />public notice of the proposed decision was published in the Delta County Independent on <br />October 11, 2000, as well. <br />