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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE 230 West 16th Street Salida, CO 81201 Phone No. 719 539-7331 4-18-90 T0: Mr. Donald Wilson Leadville Mining 8 Milling Corp. 700 Carr Street Lakewood, CO 80215 Dear Mr. Wilson, Enclosed is the information on soils, vegetation and reclamation you requested on the Hopemore mining area (Sec. 20, T9S R79W) and your millsite area <Sec. 28 & 33, T9S, R80W> located near Leadville, CO. The Hopemore mining site is located southeast of Leadville ,Colorado at an elevation of approximately 11,550 feet. This site falls within the Lake County soil survey of which two soil or land types are described, Mine Pits or Dumps (Mp) and the Troutville gravelly sandy loam (TrE). Neither of these soil types is assigned to a range site and therefore a form SCS-ECS-2 (Range Inventory) is not included for this site. Please see attached soils maps and soils descriptions. Slopes in this area range from 3 to 35 percent but in the area to be disturbed are less than 35 percent. When mining operations .begin, topsoil should be saved and stock piled for future reclamation work. Saving of the topsoil may be difficult due to shallow soil and rock. When reclamation of the site begins, slopes to be seeded should not be greater than 3 to 1 and south facing slopes should be no steeper than 6 to 1 if possible. The seedbed should be smooth and firm with any compacted areas ripped or chiseled before seeding. Seeding of the site may be accomplished with either of the enclosed seeding recommendations found on forms CO-ECS-S. Recommendation 1 is based on the plant inventory found at your site and uses grass species that are native to the site. These plants include fescue, bluegrass, nodding brome, junegrass, western yarrow, several herbaceous plants, bull thistle, and moss. Willow and spruce are also found in the surrounding area. See attached seeding recommendation 1. Recommendation 2 uses introduced grass species that are known to do well in the Leadville area. Cost and availability of seed may determine which of the two recommendations to use. Seeding rates in both recommendations are for broadcast seeding only, if seed is drilled use 1/2 of the recommended seeding rates. At the present time there is little or no erosion at the Hopemore site. Existing mine dumps are supporting vegetative growth and there are no signs of toxic heavy metals or excessive pH levels.