2008-12-19_REVISION - M1980244 (8)

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• Section 3.D.21. Written Description This application is submitted to comply with the condition C. of Teller County Commissioner's Resolution 9-11-08 (28), which was specific to revising only the proposed North Cresson mine "high wall" to further satisfy Standard number 7.A.6, Visual Resources. Standard number 7.A.6 states "In areas of new proposed precious metal mining activities, the MDP or change in a MDP pursuant to Section 8 Amendment of a Mining Development Plan, demonstrates that the project minimizes material adverse impacts to visual resources to the extent feasible, as determined by renderings of before-during-after views of representative viewpoints accessible by the general public, except of areas within the CCMOD open to the public by express agreement, or private property, around the proposed project area. " CC&V has undertaken several measures to minimize impacts to visual resources, including agreeing to transplant mature aspen for final reclamation, as well as vegetation management to keep existing aspen stands viable. In addition, noise berms, roadway berms, and descending mining benches are intended to mitigate visual impacts in mining areas. CC&V held several public meetings and open houses both before and after submitting the Mine Life Extension Application in April 2008. Many of the public comments regarded the original mine plan to complete reclamation with the North Cresson area high wall left visible. Based • upon the public comments, CC&V worked to revise the mine plan to include backfilling the North Cresson high wall area and associated reclamation. The updated mine sequencing work and subsequent visual representations were not completed in time to include in the original Mine Life Extension permit application. CC&V agreed to a condition of the approval to submit a revised visual representation of the North Cresson high wall area plan within 90 days (i.e., by December 10, 2008). CC&V has completed revised views of North Cresson mine area as seen from the Pikes Peak Heritage Center. This area has the greatest visual impact from the mining operations. Those representations are included in this application. The Mine Life Extension Project Description was included as Attachment 4 in the April 15, 2008 MDP submittal. Narrative and tabular updates to this Description are included in this application. The revised mining plan does meet the requirements of Section 7.A.6 to "...minimize material adverse impacts to visual resources to the extentfeasible... " Excerpts from topography maps from the DRMS revision application that show the proposed changes to the post-mining topography in the North Cresson mine area of interest are included with this written description for ease of reference. Based upon the changes to the reclamation plan, the backfilled area in North Cresson mine area increases from 92 acres to 109.5 acres and the reclamation costs for the Mine Life Extension increases accordingly, as detailed in the . attached DRMS application.