1994-09-28_REPORT - M1977448 - Laserfiche WebLink

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BLM/USFS ID :700-322-7261 SEP 28 '94 13 :20 Mo .004 P .06 a spring fed pond. The pond appeara to have exceeded its holding capacity and waters from this spring may have caused the bank that is the start of the St. Patrick mine road to slough off. Also contributing to the sloughing is water coming down from the bench where the mine is located. These waters are crossing the road above the pond and culvert. We walked the length of the bench to the easterly and of the waste rock that had been pushed over the rim of the bench and settled to the angle of repose. The layer of waste material was originally placed in a small drainage channel and waters coming down the channel have washed the material away so that the rim is no longer continuous. We noted that although part of the bench rim is bermed, other areas do not have enough of a berm to keep run off water from washing across the bench and down over the waste rook pile, creating channeling in the mine waste area and allowing sediment materials from the mine to move downslops. Bast of the mine portal, there are several areas where native material in at the surface. vegetation is significant. Where the native bench material is exposed, vegetation is more successful than where a cover of mine waste material exists. Along the wastepile, however, vegetation success is mixed and Indian rice grass clumps, greater than 24" in height, are established. We noted that numerous juniper seedlings are becoming established on the bench and on the outfall. Along the bench in front of the mina portal, vegetation is becoming established. When the road was closed, little pockets of rock and "growth media" angle out from the rim rock across the terrace area. These areas were possibly designed to catch need and water, but the ends are opan and the purpose appears to be defeated as serving as a potential channel for storm water movement across the terrace and over the rim of the wastepile. At the went edge of the permit area, the access road appears to have been built up with waste rock from the underground mining operation. The road huge the rim and comes out onto the county road. The road is wide enough to serve as a turning radius for vehicles to leave the spur road, enter the county road and head southeast along the Lion Canyon road. Near the spur road connection point, a spring breaks out of the rim. A pond has developed and is vegetated with graases, sedges, cattails and small shrubs. Part of the run of water from the little pond goes under Lion Creek Canyon through a 18" culvert. Where the down grade creates flow toward the Saint Patrick mines spur road, water runs that direction and meats waters coming down the cutbank of the spur road. These waters croon the spur road, then the county road, and exit over the elope slightly east of the culvert. A water erosion channel has developed along this water discharge zone. The cor.%�ined waters may have been a combined force that helped carry away material from the bank of the spur road. where surface materials. have been eroded away from the bank, colorful vanadium green rocks have been exposed. Waters that have run off the terrace area above the elope have created small erosion rills through the ore bearing rock zone. Water from the rim and bench (terrace) have weakened the stability of the material between the bench and the 2 ewitchbacke in Lion Creek Road. Along the roadway, sands and gravel, and bolder sized rocks have sloughed off onto the driving surface. A variety of erosion patterns are developing along the steep slopes and water channels from one side of the road to the other in a repeated pattern of varied width from one cross over to another. Readcutting is varied in severity and positioning from one headcut to the next. The integrity of the edge of the road varies as wall between areas that a.)pear to be very stable and areas where it would inappropriate to count on the bank not to slough away. At the natural low water crossing where the Lion Canyon Road crosses the narrow canyon, small ponds, filled with fine sediment hold cascading water for a moment before its release across the road way. A cap bed surfaces and large rocks in the stream bed describe the channel on the lower slope of the low water crossing area.