PERMFILE104613 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Tract Delineation Report - 2003 The MCC WFT LBA Page 1 • I. General Location. The West Flatiron Tract (hereafter referred to as the WFT) is located on the south side of state highway 133, on the east side of Box Canyon, and on the west side of Raven Gulch. West Flatiron ridge dissects the tract northeast and southwest. It is approximately 13 miles northeast of Paonia, Colorado and 4 miles E-SE of Somerset, Colorado. The tract is in Gunnison County. The location of the tract is shown on Figure 1. Attachment 1 contains a legal description of the tract as delineated by BLM. IL Background and History. The West Flatiron Tract was delineated in response to a competitive . lease application filed on June 20, 2003, by Mountain Coal Co., (MCC). The current delineation is a result of changes from the original application due to new data available from the underground workings of the West Elk mine. The tract lies to the E-NE of MCC-s fee coal and fee surface property. It also lies to the east of a tract of federal coal (Box Canyon Tract - COC56447) already controlled by MCC. MCC has applied for all the coal seam reserves within the WFT. The West Elk mine, operated by MCC, excavates B seam coal to the SW of the tract, and the mine plan calls for mining both D/E seam and B seam reserves to the west and S W of the tract. MCC intends to cross into the WFT where and when coal reserves present themselves at the east boundary of the Box Canyon Tract. Area of Limited Definition (ALD). Approximately 740 acres of the applied for tract in T13S R90W sections 12, 13, & 24 is either just within the data adequacy range of 3/4 mile (which is the azea of influence used by BLM for calculating the quantity and quality of the coal), or has data that • shows no mineable coal reserves. Nevertheless, the WFT was delineated in order to cover all potential mineable reserves, in order to prevent bypass of those reserves. All available data for the vicinity implies that the B seam is split by the M2 parting into two unmineable thicknesses neaz the boundary of COC56447 and the WFT, therefore the WFT is delineated to encompass every area of possible non-split reserves. This atea also is situated under an average of 1800' of overburden, is projected to have tectonic faulting with attending water and methane flows, and is considered by BLM to fit the definition of potential bypass coal. Although drilling the ALD to more substantially define the coal resource might be undertaken, it would be prohibited by U.S.F.S. surface- management policies. At any rate, drilling would likely not be completed and analyzed before development via continuous miner had already entered the area in question. MCC currently operates the West Elk underground mine that occupies their federal coal lease immediately to the east and beyond that a fee lease, their own fee surface facilities and adjacent federal coal leases. That mine has extracted both B and F seam reserves from those adjacent properties, and there is also a plan to mine the D/S seam. The B-seam workings of that mine on fee and federal coal have successfully employed the Longwall mining method ofmining. The continuous miner being used for development would cross from federal lease COC56447 into the WFT at every location where mineable coal reserves extend beyond the COC56447 boundary. Longwall mining would ensue according to the reserves developed on the WFT. The mineable reserves in the WFT would be accessed via the existing West Elk mine as mentioned • above; however, existing surface facilities (currently being used to serve Longwall mining