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-1- INTRODUCTION On April 14, 1981, Wyoming Fuel Company, a division of Kansas-Nebraska Natural Gas Company, filed an application with the Colorado Division of Mined Land Reclamation to continue and expand its operations at the Canadian Strip mine site. Located 12 miles east o£ Walden, Colorado, the Canadian Strip mine is an open pit/ haulback mine. The product is a low sulfur (0.25) subbituminus B coal. Current production is approximately 145,000 tons oer year from Pit 1. Coal is mined using truck and shovel methods, crushed on-site and hauled by independent contractor to Nanna, Wyoming. At present, Wyoming Fuel Company is producing coal from BLM-managed surface and mineral estate under Federal Coal Lease C-27931 in Pit 1. The proposed Pit 2 operations are located approximately one mile west of the existing operations under Federal Coal Lease C-30168, also managed by the BLM. The mining operations will consist of an initial boxcut (1982) and an open pit/haulback system through the life of the permit (1986). There are presently about 80 acres of land disturbed by the mining process. Approximately 24 acres of land have been mined, backfilled, retopsoiled and seeded. There are 22 acres of.land covered by overburden and topsoil stockpiles, 23 acres of active pit, and the remaining 11 acres are covered by mine facilities and coal stockpiles. The region in which the mine is located is a broad synclinal basin known as North Park. Located above 8000' and surrounded by mountains on three sides, the basin has a very low annual precipitation yield of 9-I1" and a short growing season of about 60 days. The general vegetation of the basin is a short grass/shrub community type dominated by sagebrush. The uniformity of the general cover is dissected by narrow ribbons of riparian vegetation and punctuated by isolated patches of aspens and lodgepole pine. A11 of North Park and much of the surrounding mountain slopes are located in Jackson County. Jackson County has a permanent population of about 1,200 people with a slight influx during the summer logging season. Coal mining is the major industry of Jackson County, with lumbering, ranching, and recreation-based industries providing most of the remaining local economy. During the orogeny which formed the broad synclinal basin of North Park, numerous smaller compressional features were formed. It is a series of tight anticline/sync~ine features along the eastern edge of North Park that is presently producing the region's coal. Located to the north and immediately adjacent to the Canadian Strip mine is the Marr Strip mine, owned by Kerr Coal Company. Doth mines are removing the Sudduth coal seam from the Lower Coalmoat Formation. The Marr Strip mine, an operation several times larger than the Canadian Strip mine, is proceeding north toward the nose of the Johnny Moore Syncline. Wyoming Fuel Company is mining south toward the nose of the McCallum Anticline and proposes to mine north along the western limb. The coal at the nose of the anticline will not be mined due to severe faulting, fracturing and missing coal. At the maximum mining rate, Wyoming Fuel Company anticipates producing 300,000 tons per year from the western limb, Pit 2. Total production during the life of the permit is expected to be 1,055,000 tons. The total disturbed acreage at the site will reach 170 acres by the end of the permit term in 1986.