GENERAL46377 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

• II. Background The Orchard Valley underground coal mine is located in Delta County, Colorado, approximately 4 miles North of Paonia. The mine has been in operation since 1975. About 144 acres have been affected by surface disturbance to date. The total permitted area of the Orchard Valley Mine contains about 8088 acres. Mining is expected to continue for 17 years under Colorado Permit No. C-81-038 and the approved mining plan modification. The original mining plan for the Orchard Valley Mine was approved under the Federal lands program on December 21, 1981, for Federal leases C-25079, C-27432. Since that approval there have been three other mining plan actions for the Orchard Valley Mine. The April 28, 1983 mining plan approval authorized COVCC to continue underground mining into the modified Federal lease C-27432, and added Federal lease D-036955. Federal lease C-25079 was included in this action even though all coal had previously been extracted, with no further activities planned. The August 10, 1984 mining plan action consisted of the addition of 42.5 acres in Federal lease C-37210. On November 25, 1985, a mining plan modification for mining all of Federal lease C-37210 was approved. • The November 1985 mining plan called for room and pillar mining and pillar recovery of the D-seam from all areas of the leases using a minimum mining height of 5 feet and a maximum mining height of 12 feet. In areas where the D-seam split, extraction was to occur from the upper split, and in areas where the D-seam exceeded 12 feet in thickness, only the upper 12 feet of the seam was approved for extraction. With what was known of the reserve base and mining conditions at that time, the requirement of upper D-seam only extraction was reasonable and within the range of maximum economic recovery (MER) for the property. Unfortunately, experience in trying to carry out the upper seam only extraction has met with little success. BLM has approved numerous minor revisions of the mining plan, all of which relate directly or indirectly to the inability to extract the upper portion of the D-seam safely and economically within contract specifications. Rather than continue with the previous approach to the persistent mining problems, COVCC has comprehensively reexamined the reserve base on the property with the aim of identifying those areas which can be mined safely, economically, and within marketable contract specifications. The resulting reserve analysis and mining plan proposes a 50$ reduction in the recoverable reserves, from 37 million • tons to about 18 million tons.