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-6- Description of the Existing Environment The C.E.C. surface roal mine is located appreximate.ly 8 miles south of Florence, Colorado in Fremont County. The mine can he reached by driving south from Florence via Colorado Route 67 to Fremont County koute 15, Con- tinue on Route 15 for 3.5 miles to county road 9:3 where mine idvntif.ication signs can be followed to the office. G.E.C. Minerals produces fee coal in ar.cordance with the provisions of Mining And Reclamation Permit Ik77-48. The legal description of the Lands and coal leased from the Corley Coal Company can be found in Exhibit 20. Mr. Schwab, officer of G.E.C., also controls a portion of the. area to be permitted as described on page 7_.03-5 b. The proposed permit area lies within Township 20 South, Ranges 69 and 70 West of the 6th P.M. as shown on Map 1 of this document. The G.E.C. Mine is located in the Canon City Cnal field which has been exten- sively mined since the early I900s. The existence of numerous mine pits and spoil piles has greatly altered the natural topography. Map 2 of this d~cu- ment delineates the extent of past mining activity in the area. The general area is a transition zone from the foothills of the Wet Mountains to the eastern Colorado plains. The site description and land u.se information can he found beginning on page 2.04-2 of. the permit application. Existing vegetation is predominately a grassland/woodland community e]assified by the Soil Conservation Servir_e as poor to fair for rangeland and wildlife habitat. This is due, in part, to low rainfall, overgrazing and past miuing activities in the area. There are no known cultural or historical resources ]iste.d or eligihle for listing nn the National Register of Historic Places within the permit or adjar_ent areas. A file search was conducted by the Colorado State Historical Society and results of that file search are included as Exhibit. ]0 in the application. Geological, hydrological and climatological portions of the permit application were provided by the Small Operator's Assistance Program under .a contract managed by the Office of Surface Mining. This information is provided in Exhibit l2 of the application. Geology of the Canon City Coal field (see Map 3 of this document) is expressed by a belt of sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous age. The Vec-mejo Formation, the coal bearing strata of this coal field, lies conformahly on the Trinidad Sand- stone, the~only aquifer of signiEigance in the area. T'he general depositional environment of the Vermejo is a typical prograding linear clastic shoreline or delta type environment. As such, the eleven coal seams identified in Figure 1 of this document are lenticular and discontinuous. The coal seams range in thickness from one to eleven feet. G.E.C. proposes to mine five of the eleven seams as shown on Exhibit 12 and Table 4 in the permit application.