PERMFILE113074 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

vegetation. See Table I - OMLLC-Elk Creek Lease -?003 - Hydrologic,4ssessment for additional information concerning the photo points. It was thought that a visual assessment of the vegetation in the Bear creek drainage could be used to determine if there were mining related impacts to "high value" hydrologic resources associated with the Bear creek riparian zone. For example, if a8er mining occurred in a definable area along the Bear Creek drainage the tree canopy started to die immediately, such visual evidence could suggest that the mortality was mining related. The degraded status of native vegetation populations found at all the photo points were similar and representative of the conditions found throughout the drainage. Significant portions of the narrowleaf cottonwood canopy is already dead or partially dead throughout the Beaz Creek drainage. Douglas fir is showing significant mortality due to a bark beetle infestation, both within the riparian zone and upland areas. Because of the poor quality of the dominant vegetation in Bear creek, it would be very difficult to distinguish between natural variations in vegetation patterns versus vegetation patterns caused by mining related injury. Because of this difficulty, the idea of using photo points in the Beaz Creek drainage was abandoned as an option to determine injury to the Bear creek drainage riparian zone. HUBBARD CREEK Mining activities will not approach Hubbazd creek directly. Subsidence related mining activities (the conservative 25° angle of draw} will remain outside the Hubbard creek subsidence protection zone. For that reason it was agreed that Hubbard creek is exempt from the Water Replacement Plan, Special Stipulation and no additional monitoring is required. OMLLC will continue the current monitoring program for Hubbard creek as outlined and agreed upon in Permit C-1981-022 with the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (CDMG) (see Appendix 4 of the Water Replacement Plan). d ELK CREEK Elk Creek lease mining activities will not approach Elk creek directly. It was agreed that no additional monitoring under the Water Replacement Plan will be required. OMLLC will continue the current monitoring program for Elk creek as outlined and agreed upon in Permit C-1981-022 with the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (CDMG) (see Appendix 4 of the Water Renlacement Plan). The CDMG permit requires that Elk creek groundwater resources be monitored at three locations and surface water resources be monitored at two locations. INFRARED PHOTOGRAMETRY It was suggested that infrared photographs had the potential to be used to monitor the hydrologic resources of the Elk creek lease. Perhaps changes in the infrared signature of important hydrologic resources could be utilized to determine "injury" by mining activities. Infrared photographs were obtained from commercially available U.S. Government resources and examined for their potential for use in determining injury to areas in the Elk Creek lease. It was found that the hydrologic resources of the Elk creek lease are too limited and the scale of the infrared photographs were too large to be used effectively for monitoring hydrologic resources. Thus, the use of infrared photographs as a toot to determine injury from mining activities was abandoned. n LJ