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RECEIVED <br />• DECISION MEMO MF.~ ~ ~ J~2 <br />Mountain Coal Company Gob Vent Borehole Drilling vision of !Nina. - - - <br />On Sites 97-26-1 and RAV-10 <br />USDA-Forest Service <br />Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests <br />Paonia Ranger District <br />Gunnison County, Colorado <br />I. INTRODUCTION <br />Mountain Coal Company (MCC) operates the West Elk Mine, an underground coal mine <br />near the town of Somerset, in Gunnison County, Colorado. MCC mines coal from <br />several federal leases, some of which underlie surface lands that are administered by the <br />USDA-Forest Service, Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison National Forest (GMUG), <br />Paonia Ranger District. <br />MCC informed the GMUG on March 21, 2001 that they were experiencing problems <br />• with excessive methane gas build up in the underground mine. The mine's existing <br />ventilation system is unable to adequately remove the methane from the workings to keep <br />the gas level within a safe operating range. MCC had been trying various other methods, <br />including installing horizontal drill holes into the coal seam to liberate and control the <br />methane gas. The mine has been periodically shut down by the Mining Safety and Health <br />Administration (MSHA) over the past two weeks to allow [he methane levels to reduce to <br />safe concentrations. MSHA placed the mine under shut down orders because of the <br />imminent danger to health and safety due to the high concentrations of methane. Mine <br />personnel have been allowed underground to perform maintenance activities only, but no <br />production activity has been allowed. <br />MCC approached the GMUG with a proposal to install gob ventilation boreholes from <br />the land surface to assist in liberating the methane gas (see Section II). <br />II. PROPOSED ACTION <br />The proposed action is to install 6 vertical and/or directional gob ventilation boreholes <br />(GVB) from 2 locations on the land surface into the underground mine for the purpose of <br />liberating methane gas. Directional drilling techniques will be used to install GVBs into <br />adjacent longwall panels. This approach also minimizes surface disturbance by drilling <br />more than one hole from each drill pad. The proposed GVBs would be used to liberate <br />methane from longwall panels 14 and 15. <br />• <br />