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•~ . <br />._. <br />energy fuels corporation <br />box B • steamboat spri~Bs, Colorado 81)477 • (303) 8793800 <br />Mr. Allen F. Whitaker <br />Colorado Division of Wildlife <br />6060 Broadway <br />Denver, CO 80216 <br />iii iiiiiiiiniiiiii ~~ <br />999 <br />R <br />9 <br />MAR <br />MINED LAND RECLAMATION-COAL <br />COLFP~E14amSr NaHq~`49S'P'RC/BWED LAND RECLAMATION -COAL <br />COlO. DERi. OF NAElRV1 IL[SOWtCES <br />Gentlemen: <br />.~ <br />RECEIVED <br />~~V 111 [l V J ~, _ . <br />Mr. Ronal Finley <br />U.S. Fish S Wildlife Services <br />Suite 103 <br />1360 S. Wadsworth <br />Lakewood, CO 80226 <br />This letter is a followup to our prior telephone conversation re- <br />garding the elk monitoring program presently being conducted by Energy <br />Fuels Corporation ("EFC") in connection with Permit 79-177 and is in <br />response to the letters received by EFC from the Colorado Mined Land <br />Reclamation Division ("CMLRD") and the Office of Surface Mining ("OSM"), <br />which are enclosed for your review. <br />Our particular concern arises from the fact that the proposed elk <br />monitoring program as outlined in these letters and which has supposedly <br />"been agreed to by all concerned parties..." has never been previously <br />presented to LIS and in fact is somewhat contradictory to the guidance we <br />obtained from both the Colorado Division of Wildlife ("CDOW") and the U.S. <br />Fish and Wildlife Service ("USFWS") during the meetings held at our mine <br />on August 6, 1980 and January 20, 1981. <br />Our two specific concerns arise from the fact that paragraph two of <br />the OSM letter seemingly implies that our 1981 monitoring program should <br />employ the "same methods used in 1980" so data can be directly compared to <br />the 1980 data. It is our understanding that your concensus during both of <br />the above-mentioned meetings was that the previous elk monitoring program <br />was too generalized and ineffective to yield detailed data on the move- <br />ments of individual cow elk, and hence a more detailed study was initi- <br />ated. The proposed monitoring program suggested by OSM implies that EFC <br />conduct two studies; continue the study used in 1980 and enhance that <br />study with the tagging program initiated in 1981. Your advice to us, as <br />we understood it, was to concentrate on the new study and forget about <br />duplicating the 1980 study. As you can see, this conflicts with the <br />statement in the OSM letter. Since both the CDOIJ and USFWS have been <br />mentioned in the OSM letter as having been consulted and in agreement with <br />this program, we would ask for a clarification of this item. <br />