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III IIIIIIIIIIIII III ~ sroNE cRUSNiNc 24600 COUNTY ROAD P DOLORES, COLORADO 87323 Te/ephone (970J 565-2603 31 December 1997 Division of Minerals & Geology 1313 Sherman Street, 215 Centennial Bldg Denver, Colorado 80203 Attention: Michael B. Long, Director Subject: File N4 M 97-089 "Stone Gravel Pit" R T B of 22 Dec 97 Dear Mr. Long: RECEI`IED IAN ~ 51998 Divicinn of ..;,no::.c :. ~.cohm; We believe your 22 December 1997 letter describing a "reason to believe a violation eaists" to be in error. The reasons for this belief are many-fold and are listed below. 1) Rule No.l of the Rules and Regulations of the Mined Land Reclamation Board clearly exempts a prospecting disturbance of sixteen-hundred square feet or less (no more than two such disturbances per acre) from the definition of "EXPLORATION" (... requiring a "notice of intent" and corresponding reclamation warranty). 2) Such an exemption is consistent with preceding versions of the Rules & Regulations and with The Act prior to the latest revision, giving any operator no reason to believe other requirements now prevail. 3) Also consistent with continuation of this exemption is the very nature of the minor disruption of gravel resource exploration. Backhoe test pits and even the seldom used dozer trench excavations are relatively minor, and easily self- revegetated due to the very small, narrow surface disruption. Test pits and borings alike are, by the nature of their economic feasibility, confined to the very near-surface, shallow horizons of the earth. Aquifer contamination and subsurface hydrology disruption are next to impossible, due not only to the very limited extent of the activity, but also to the extremely short duration (often measured in minutes). 4) Pursuit of this enforcement action upon this operator is arbitrary, and has not been applied to the thousands of similar such individual activities of other operators occurring state-wide since the mistake in revisions of The Act.