2008-12-04_PERMIT FILE - C1994082A (15)

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• i • I• borrow areas, and spillway for sites located down drainage of mining activitiesl, haul roads, access roads, mining area (includes box cut spoil and highwatl reduction area, spoil and waste stockpile areas, coal stockpile area, office and shop area, explosive storage area, and diversion ditched. Soi{ will be removed from all cut and fill slopes. No soil will be salvaged from the light use roads utilized for environmental monitoring or power line corridors, except where cut and fills are required. Prior to topsoil removal, trees and shrubs which are too large for direct incorporation into the topsoil may be mechanically chipped/mulched and incorporated with the topsoil during salvage to help increase soil organic matter levels or scraped away and combined with the overburden. Occasionally, some vegetation will be transported to final graded slopes and placed in either brush piles or shrub islands throughout the reclamation. To prevent unnecessary contamination and loss due to sloughing, soil shall be salvaged a minimum of 5 to 15 feet from the edge of a road, end of a pit, embankment, ditch, cut slope, and toe of fill. Soil shall also be salvaged up to 100 feet beyond the active pit to protect the soil resource from being contaminated during blasting, benching, drilling, and other mining activities. Soil will typically be salvaged about 500 to 750 feet in advance of the active pit during late summer and early fall to provide an adequate buffer during the winter months. Soil will be removed by using self-loading scrapers, push scrapers, or other rubber tired equipment. A dozer or road grader will also be used when needed to assist scraper loading, to facilitate maximum soil recovery, and to help build and shape soil stockpiles. Where soil exists on a steep slope and where there is enough room for scrapers to maneuver at the bottom of that slope, soil will be removed by being pushed downhill with a dozer, picked up with scrapers, then stockpiled or transferred directly to final graded areas. In other steep slope situations, soil removed by dozers will be pushed outside of the soil disturbance area and stored in approved stockpiles at the bottom of that slope. Lastly, in final pit highwatl reduction and first pit boxcut spoil areas, along Haul Road A and at pond construction sites, soil removed by dozers will be pushed outside the soil disturbance area and stored temporarily (less than one year) in furrows. This soil will either be respread over adjacent final graded slopes or will be transported to an approved stockpile site. A one-lift soil handling operation will be used for all soil map units within the projected disturbance area. This method of soil removal is desirable because the soils are either shallow iSplitro), moderately deep (Winevada), or deep ICoutis and Silas), and TR-25 ' 19 Revised 09104