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~. <br />`~:. ~ `-fi <br />III IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII <br />Coors Brewing Company <br />Golden, Colorado 80401-1295 <br />~~ <br />DRIMK <br />SAFFLY <br />June 5, 1996 <br />Mr. Keith Schuett <br />Weld County Planning Department <br />Building 1400 <br />North 17th Ave. <br />Greeley, CO 80631 <br />RE: Keenesburg Mine-Waste Rock Disposal <br />Dear Mr. Schuett, <br />Q~c:E~vEo <br />JUN ~ ~ 1996 <br />pfvielon or N+~nera~s d~ Geology <br />Thank you for your verbal correspondence to date with Mr. Don MacDonald <br />concerning the disposal of the Little Bear waste rock at the Coors Energy Company's <br />facility at Keenesburg. This letter is to describe in more detail our proposal for <br />handling selected waste rock at Keenesburg. <br />The waste rock sits on a hillside along and in Little Bear Creek, which is above Idaho <br />Springs. The interest in moving the waste rock comes from the fact that Little Bear <br />Creek contributes to the drinking water supply of Idaho Springs. Currently, the waste <br />rock adds sediment and metals, such as copper and zinc, to the creek. Although the <br />Little Bear site is included in the Clear Creek/Central City superfund area, the waste <br />rock itself is not judged to be hazardous under RCRA. The U.S.D.A. Forest Service <br />administers the property and is charged with the duty of removing or otherwise <br />restricting the migration of the waste rock into the creek. <br />Our proposal is to have the Forest Service move approximately 10,000 cubic yards <br />of the Little Bear waste rock to the Keenesburg mine in Weld County to be used as <br />apart of the Keenesburg reclamation project. Current capacity at Keenesburg is <br />about 1,000,000 cubic yards. We are currently backfilling the strip mine with ash <br />from the Trigen (formerly Coors) power plant in Golden. This additional material <br />would be disposed of in a similar manner except that we would take care to sandwich <br />the tailings between layers of ash. The Keenesburg site is highly qualified to accept <br />this waste rock since the ash is alkaline in nature and the waste acidic. Also, the <br />very low rainfall of the area coupled with the clay lining of the reclamation pit <br />combine to ensure no migration of the waste off site. <br />Coors Energy Co. has made this proposal to the Forest Service free of charge and <br />expects no reimbursement in any way for the disposal of this material. We strongly <br />view this project as awin-win-win for the Clear Creek watershed, Weld County and <br />Coors Energy as we are able to combine our resources to provide a repository for <br />these mine tailings, income to Weld County in the form of disposal fees and the <br />knowledge by all that we will have helped improve the environment of our headwater <br />streams. We hope that this project will qualify as a minor amendment to our existing <br />