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Surface coal mining operations at the Nucla Mine will be conducted in four <br />separate areas as shown on Exhibit 12-1 and addressed in Section XV - <br />Operations Description of this document, A11 excavation and backfill <br />operations will be performed concurrently with scrapers or dozers. No <br />dragline spoil piles will be created and contemporaneous reclamation will <br />occur as an integral part of the mining process. Initially, some overburden <br />material will be temporarily stockpiled outside of the mined pits onto <br />previously mined land but will subsequently be hauled back to the mined area <br />or graded to achieve the final land form, Approximately three months will be <br />needed to complete backfilling operations in each of the areas mined. <br />During overburden removal operations, some selective handling of material will <br />be performed in each of the mining areas based on the results of the <br />overburden physical and chemical analyses contained in Tab 6 (Volume 2) and <br />Tab 13 (Volume 10) of the permit application. The overburden in each mining <br />unit has been classified according to geochemical and lithologic <br />characteristics. A discussion regarding placement of this material is <br />included in Section IV - Geology of this document. <br />Previous mining operations at the Nucla Mine were conducted by using draglines <br />to excavate overburden material. The swe71 factor for dragline excavation was <br />determined to be approximately 25 percent. With the implementation of the <br />revised mine plan which involves the exclusive use of scrapers and dozers to <br />excavate and backfill overburden material, Peabody estimated a percent swell <br />of 15 percent, based on previous experience and a site visit. <br />-27 a- May 6, 1988 <br />