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GENERAL49575
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Last modified
8/24/2016 8:29:02 PM
Creation date
11/23/2007 5:13:18 PM
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Template:
DRMS Permit Index
Permit No
M1999002
IBM Index Class Name
General Documents
Doc Date
1/19/1999
Doc Name
DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT CHAPTER 2
From
STIEGERS CORP
To
DMG
Media Type
D
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No
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<br />CNAPTERTWO <br />Proposed Action and Alternatives , <br />Transportation of finished sodium products from the Piceance Site would ha~~e required <br />shipment by truck on county roads and state highways to a railroad loadout facility that <br />would be constructed along the Union Pacific main line neaz Rifle. Concem:~ about the <br />potential for increased road maintenance costs and increased accidents associated with that <br />trucking activity were raised by Rio Blanco County. Based on production estimates for the <br />project, approximately 52 round trips per day would be required under this alternative to haul <br />finished products from the Piceance Site to Rifle using 40-ton double trailer trucks on County <br />Road 5 and State Highway 13. Alternatively, hauling product using 25-ton single trailer <br />trucks would have required approximately 85 round trips per day. The incret~sed volume of <br />truck traffic that would be experienced under this alternative was also perceived as a potential <br />source of increased traffic accidents and increased vehicle-animal collisions ~md possibly as a <br />hazard to school bus traffic during certain periods of the day. <br />The Proposed Action would alleviate these concerns and would provide additional benefits by <br />using existing infrastructure to support the Yankee Gulch Project. <br />2.5.2 Alternative Mining Methods <br />2.5.2.1 Two Well Mining System <br />White River Nahcolite (WRN) is an existing nahcolite solution mining operation neaz American <br />Soda's proposed operation. WRN's operation uses two wells connected by a horizontal bore <br />(Figure 2-16). Mining fluid is injected in one well and travels through the horizontal bore to the <br />second well where the mining solution is recovered. This method uses relatively low <br />temperatures and pressures to dissolve nahcolite and create a horizontal cavity. Phis method has <br />only been used to mine high-grade, bedded nahcolite. In order to be viable, the mineral bed <br />would need to be on the order of 20 feet or more thick and have a purity of about 85 percent or <br />more. Only one such potential zone of nahcolite occurs on American Soda's lease, and it occurs <br />on only about 30 percent of the lease. The majority of the nahcolite resource on the Yankee <br />Gulch Joint Venture Leases is disseminated rather than bedded. <br />A principal feature of American Soda's mining method is that it uses pressure an~9 temperature to <br />recover both bedded and disseminated nahcolite. The two-well system is not viable for <br />recovering the disseminated nahcolite, and using this method would severely reduce the overall <br />recovery of nahcolite. The two-well method would leave as much as 95 to 98 percent of the total <br />nahcolite resource unrnined. While this type of recovery may be viable for a bicarbonate <br />producer such as WRN, it is not viable for a soda ash producer such as American Soda because <br />much higher volumes of product aze required to be viable in the soda ash mazket. Such low <br />recovery of nahcolite would render this project economically inviable. <br />Theoretically, there may be some future application of two-well system that could allow greater <br />recovery of the disseminated nahcolite, but it has not been demonstrated. Application of the two- <br />well system to American Soda's project would have a host of difficult technical problems related <br />to the horizontal orientation of the cavity. The answers to two-well production issues such as <br />how to control cavity growth and the associated potential for aquifer contamination, how to <br />2-36 <br />
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