2008-02-13_REVISION - C1980007 - Laserfiche WebLink

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