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and product production more expensive and reduces the volume of final product made available it does have a positive side. More wash fines means more material available for backfilling. 4. Access corridors - No change in access corridors. New soil and overburden stockpiles - Neazly all overburden and soil generated now is stockpiled immediately adjacent to the mining pits. These piles aze usually short-lived and often used in backfilling and topdressing new reclamation azeas within a year, and often less, of when the pile was generated. This is a faz more efficient process, but does run the risk of additional soil and overburden handling. Whenever possible, new strippings are placed at the edge of the anticipated extent of the current deposit so as to especially minimize rehandling of soil. RECLAMATION ACTIVITY IN THE LAST YEAR: Climatic summary of previous year - Once in awhile a year happens when the climatic patterns exhibit the extremes all in one year. The 2006-2007 year was one of those. June 2006 was exceedingly dry with no rain whatsoever and hot, dry winds almost everyday. All except the wetland vegetation suffered. Few wildflowers bloomed and even cactus exhibited very limited blooming. Even the wetlands constricted some during the early summer. In July, August, and September conditions improved with a strong but intermittent monsoon season. Strangely though, the Coal Creek drainage was largely missed by the strong storms that consistently seemed to follow a path about five miles west of the site where heavy rains were seemingly a daily occurrence. It was as if an invisible wall had been constructed just west of the Coal Creek drainage. Furthermore, lands to the south, east and north also received good moisture. But heavy rains in the Coa] Creek drainage were rare and did not even come close to making up for the losses in June. The autumn was warm and prolonged. Green leaves on cottonwoods and willows persisted into mid October and some were still fairly green in late October. Just before Christmas though, the pattern underwent a dramatic shift to the other extreme. Snowfall and blizzards were intense and prodigious with large storms occurring at least once a week well into late January. As a result, many feet of snow covered the Coal Creek drainage throughout the winter. The grazing efforts had to resort to almost continuous feeding as well as clearing pathways in the snow by plowing so the cattle, which were often belly deep in snow, could move azound and reach the feed. With all the snowcover and radiative cooling, night temperatures were low and if the sky was clear the temperatures were very low as cold air sank into the valley. Spring of 2007 was slow to come. By March some baze ground was beginning to appear, but drifts on south facing slopes were still very deep and many of these did not disappear until well into April. Snowmelt was tremendous producing rivulets and streams everywhere. Soils became saturated and the meltwater simply ran off resulting in heavy flows in Coal Creek. Vegetation growth did not actually show much activity until May. With the superchazging of surface soils and major replenishment of subsoils, when growth did begin it was robust. Species of grass, such as the needlegrasses, that had not shown good growth for years quickly became Status report for 2007 (July 15, 2007) Page 7 of 12