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I. DRMS SHOULD ANALYZE THE IMPACTS OF MINE EXPANSION BOTH <br />ABOVE AND BELOW GROUND IN A SINGLE PERMIT REVISION. <br />DRMS is currently considering a Permit Revision, known as PR12, for the expansion of <br />the E-seam of West Elk Mine that Mountain Coal Company (MCC) apparently submitted to <br />DRMS on or about October 1, 2007. The public notice for the Permit Revision states: "No <br />surface facilities or related surface disturbance is presently proposed in conjunction with this <br />Permit Revision...." Public Notice, Delta County Independent (October 10, 2007). <br />On or about October 15, 2007, MCC submitted to DRMS the applications for two <br />Technical Revisions (TR111 and TRl 12) that are intended to authorize the construction of <br />methane venting wells in the E-seam at the West Elk Mine. TR112 includes wells that are <br />intended to vent the area to be mined under the authorization of PR 12. <br />Given this chronology, it is difficult to believe that "[n]o surface facilities or related <br />surface disturbance" were under consideration by MCC at the time it submitted its application <br />for PR12. While MCC filed with DRMS separate applications - one for a Permit Revision, <br />addressing underground mining, and the other two for separate Technical Revisions addressing <br />coal mine methane venting - these applications actually represent a single, unitary project that <br />cannot be rationally broken apart. As MCC has long asserted, and as the Forest Service states in <br />its environmental impact statement reviewing the impacts of the methane drainage wells, MCC's <br />underground coal mining cannot occur unless the above-ground methane wells first remove <br />methane from the coal seam. See Exhibit 1 (Project Final EIS) at S-1 ("In order to continue <br />operations to recover leased federal coal reserves, the excess methane must be evacuated from <br />the underground workings ...."). In fact, as early as 2006, at least a year before the public notice <br />for PR12 stated that "[n]o surface facilities or ... surface disturbance is presently proposed in <br />conjunction with" expansion of MCC's operations, MCC had "brought forward methane <br />drainage needs" to the Forest Service. Exhibit 2 (Project Record of Decision) at 3.3 <br />DRMS should examine in a single Permit Revision this unitary project - involving <br />expansion of coal mining together with the above ground methane drainage wells. This will <br />ensure that the agency and the public are able to review and understand the entirety of the project <br />at once, as opposed to being forced to review the project piecemeal. <br />As an alternative, DRMS should at the very least examine the activities proposed under <br />PR 12 and TR112 as a single Permit Revision. As the application for TRI 11 covers only <br />activities on lands not considered by PR12, it might be segregated. Such an approach is not ideal <br />as it segregates a portion of the surface activities related to methane venting but is preferable to <br />the current three-revision approach. <br />Further, the bulldozing of hundreds of well pads and miles of roads in a previously little- <br />disturbed area - in fact in an area the Forest Service has repeatedly found to be "roadless" - fits <br />squarely within the definition of a project requiring a Permit Revision since it represents a <br />s If MCC submitted an application for PR-12 concerning underground coal mining that <br />did not acknowledge the company's need to undertake significant ground-disturbing operations <br />to vent methane, the completeness and veracity of that application would be questionable. <br />2