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underground in June 1993 and a beltline was used to transport the majority of coal out of the east <br />portals to the crushing and screening facility located at the east mine. This precluded the <br />trucking of coal from the west mine portals, which had occurred when the West Mine became <br />operational. The approved plan to construct rock slope tunnels to connect the east and west <br />mines became obsolete with the rehabilitation of the east mine portals. <br />The general direction of mining had been northward to extract coal from the D seam. When <br />mining was active, the coal had moved from the mining face via a continuous haulage system <br />shuttle cars to afeeder-breaker and then out of the east mine via conveyor belt to a surge bin, a <br />screening/crushing facility and a truck loading facility. Although mining at the Bowie No. 1 <br />Mine has ceased, BRL periodically trucks coal from the Bowie No. 2 Mine to the Bowie No. 1 <br />Mine storage silos and railroad loadout facility where it is loaded onto trains for shipment to <br />market. <br />Because mining has ceased, there is no predicted production rate for this five-year permit term. <br />The mine utilized the room and pillar mining method of extracting coal. <br />The approved reclamation plan requires that, after the conclusion of mining, the portals will be <br />backfilled, all surface facilities will be removed, the mine benches will be recontoured, the <br />loadout will be regraded to approximate original contour, and all areas will be revegetated in <br />accordance with the approved post-mining land use and revegetation plan. However, there is a <br />possibility that the train loadout will continue to operate for many years, as a loading facility for <br />coal from other mines, after the rest of the mine site has been reclaimed. Reclamation operations <br />are in progress at both the East Mine and the West Mine. <br />20 <br />