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State Reg. ....CLIMATOLOGICAL .INFORMATION Section 2.04.8 of the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board regulations requires climatological information representative of the proposed permit area.. , ..The information to be included is: a) the mean monthly precipitation; b) the average direction and velocity of the prevailing winds; and c) mean monthly temperature and temperature ranges. Seneca Coals, Ltd. has collected meteorological information at the Seneca II Mine since October 1976. The meteorological equipment was located further east of its present location and at a lower elevation until the fall of 1979. Because mining has progressed out of the valley bottom and upward. to higher terrain near the ridge tops, the meteorological equipment has been moved to what is shown as "Weather Station" on Exhibit 12-2. The new site was chosen in order that the data collected be more representative of conditions in the actual area of mining. The move was discussed with and approved by the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division. Seneca Coals,. ,.,Ltd. thus has nearly four years of meteorological information divided between two sites. This information is obviously not adequate for "climatological" data as requested by the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board. Climatological information is nothing more than long-tgrm trends in meteorology, i.e. an absolute minimum of twenty (20) years of meteorological data is necessary to even begin a climatological assessment. The four years of data between two sites at the Seneca Mine do not meet the requirements. The closest meteorological station to the Seneca II Mine that has data in excess of twenty years is the station at Hayden, Colorado, approximately nine miles to the .northwest (Climatological Data; Annual Summary; Colorado 1978. National Climatic Center; Ashville, N.C.). The Hayden station has a 53 year record of temperature measurements and a 59 year record of precipitation records. ~~ 8-2