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Michael Long, Director December 22, 1993 Page 3 Rancho Escondido were platted, and the entire Rancho Escondido area was zoned "Ranchette", prior to 1978, as shown by Raton West's Exhibit 12. Further, land owner notification must be made to current landowners. 5. A closely related concern which requires investigation is that we believe that Basin is not able to locate its underground workings relative to Rancho Escondido lots and structures, to an accuracy of better than 300 feet, and that all of its maps, including the MSHA ventilation map, appear to be substantially outdated. This raises issues regarding subsidence monitoring and planning as well as mine safety issues. A date which is significant is that Basin and its predecessors acquired the coal reserves accessed by the Golden Eagle Mine at times when the surface could have been purchased very cheaply, completely avoiding the mineral owner-surface owner conflict which exists today. As stated in our December 2 letter, the relationship between the surface owner and the severed mineral owner is governed by two specific statutes in addition to the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Act. The first of these is CRS 34-33-121 Surface effects of underground coal mining, and the other is CRS 34-48-106 Security for mining under surface. Any assertion that the latter statute does not pertain to coal is negated by the fact that all of the annotated cases are coal cases, all of which were favorable to the surface owner. Basin Resources is in violation of both statutes as far as protection of the surface owner is concerned. The Division does not have the option of ignoring either statute. We believe that Raton west is entitled to relief under the cited Colorado law regardless of applicable federal law. However, the position of the Office of Surface Mining is consistent with our views, as shown by the discussion at the beginning of their September 24, 1993 proposed rules (Raton West Exhibit 29). While these rules are still in the public comment stage until January 24, 1994, they will likely be adopted in their present or slightly modified format in the very near future. We also believe that no further rule making by the Board is needed in order to require the security/bonding and other actions by Basin which we request. In the event the Division concludes that rule making would be necessary, then the new permit which Basin is seeking for the Golden Eagle Mine cannot be issued until such rule making is complete, otherwise the Board would be countenancing an evasion and violation of the cited statutes. ~~a, u,~rm, x~w ~ er~m