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Volume 9A. The Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Plan can be found on pages 87 to 94, Section 2.05 of Volume 1. The general area contains important winter range for both elk and deer, and over 10,000 hunter days per year are spent in this area. Golden eagles have been nesting near the mine site for several years, but no threatened or endangered wildlife species have been observed. The North Fork of the Gunnison River contains twelve (12) species of fish, including three (3) species of game fish (rainbow trout, brown trout, and northern pike). However, due to the poor production of benthic organisms and poor habitat conditions, the North Fork is not stocked frequently. Impacts to wildlife are minimized by prohibiting public use of Yrails when big game are concentrated in the winter (December 1 to April 16>, and by prohibiting the cutting of snags except those within the actual disturbed area. Description of the Operation and Reclamation Plan The Orchard Valley Mine is an existing underground mine which has been in operation since 1975. There are three major disturbed areas within the permit boundary. The original portals east of Steven's Gulch are the site of the main offices, crushing and screening facilities, and .storage and warehouse areas. The Orchard Valley West Mine portals on East Roatcap Creek are adjoined by a small maintenance facility, ventilation shaft and water tank. The coal loadout facilities are located adjacent to the North Fork of the Gunnison River along State Highway 133. The Orchard Valley West Mine (OVWM) portal facilities in East Roatcap Creek enable COVCC to access the reserves that were cut off due to the fire at the main portals. Mining occurred west of the main mine during the 1988 to 1993 five-year mine plan. The east mine portals were rehabilitated during late 1992 and early 1993. The two mines were connected underground in June 1993. By the end of July 1993, a beltline will connect both mines such that the majority of coal will be transported, by conveyor belt, out of the east portals to the crushing and screening .facility located at the east mine. This precludes trucking of coal from the west mine portals, which has occurred since OVWM became operational. The approved plan to construct rock slope tunnels to connect the east and west mines became obsolete with the rehabilitation of the east mine portals. The general direction of mining has been and will continue to be northward to extract coal from the D seam. The coal will move from the mining face via a continuous haulage system to afeeder-breaker and then out of the east mine via conveyor belt to a surge bin and truck loading facility. The coal is then trucked to storage silos and a railroad loadout facility where it is loaded onto trains for shipment to market. The predicted production rate for this five-year permit term is from 1 million to 1.5 million tons per year. The mine utilizes the room and pillar mining method of extracting coal. The current expected life of mine is 17 years. Most of the surface facilities are existing structures that will remain in their present state for the life of mine. The only major area of active, -18-