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land. If the Division would be interested In a "substitution" oP reclaiming this land as a kind oP "credit" against the reclamation balance and apply any bonding to only the western portion of the plan the operator would be quite willing to discuss this. Proving the Eastern area is in fact pre-law may be difficult, although the current operator can assure th'e Division that the extensive high walls in this area were not produced by this operator. In short, the operator is willing to reclaim this area even though no extraction will occur and none has ever occurred by this operator. If there is any way to permit this land under an assumption that it is not in fact pre-law, reclaim in accordance with the plan, but not have it bonded such would be greatly appreciated. It should be pointed out, that the best information we have is that the original disturbances created on this site were produced by the Colorado Divi:~lon of Highways. Because their work was pre-law it was determined that no reclamation was required by that agency. It was primarily the difficulty oP proving that the land was in fact pre-law minr:d land that caused the operator to include it in the permit in the first place. Item 3a: Regarding the minimum depth of growth medium. RESPONSE: For topsoil, a minimum depth of 2 inches should apply. That way, iP there is some soil salvaged that is more than 2 inches deep some of the deficiency caused by previous mining will be made ul~. For the created "soil", a minimum depth is very hard to determine or describe. If an Inch or two oP sawdust and other gro~ind up woody material is spread and mixed into the surface material two or three inches deep then it could be assumed that the growth ~;nedium is two or three inches deep. The problem, however, is that mixing sawdust and wood shavings into decomposed granite do?s not necessarily make a soil or de Pine the Functional extent of the growth medium. There Pore depth descriptions oP such a sut~stance that cannot be precisely de Pined in a functional sense is simply not possible or meaningful as it is with topsoil. Page 3 of the reclamation plan describes the process of creating this growth medium as essentially mixing 1 to 1.5 inches of woody material Into the surface primarily using a dozer treads to do the mixing. We Peel that this describes as accurately as possible the nature oP the growth medium being created. With regard to erosion control, it has been our experience that grading an area using a dozer that works up and down thfe slope and leaves extensive tread marks provides a control oP erosion equal to that achieved by dlscing or plowing while providing an excellent seed base in the tread marks. Ultimately this produces a functional vegetation that is just a effective at controlling erosion as drill seeding along the contour. OP course, there is alwa~~s the possibility that a major thunderstorm will cause the slope to erode anyway, but that possibility exists even when mulches are used on slopes of decomposed granite. However, unexpected erosional