2008-06-09_PERMIT FILE - C1980007 (5)

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• • SUMMARY Background Federal coal reserves are cun-ently being mined by Mountain Coal Company (MCC) from their West Elk Mine. MCC presently operates a longwall system of underground mining, which is permitted with the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DBMS) for a production rate of 8.2 million tons of coal per year. The West Elk Mine was opened in 1981 and presently produces coal from several existing federal coal leases. The coal mined at the West Elk Mine, as well as from other mines in the North Fork Valley, is a high British Thermal Unit (BTU), low sulfur, low ash, and low mercury coal. The coal meets the Clean Air Act standards for compliant and super-compliant coal. Its use in industry helps meet standards of the Clean Air Act. As such, there is a demand for coal from the West Elk Mine and other mines in the North Fork Valley by electric power generation industries. In the past 5 years, operations at the West Elk Mine have extracted coal from the B coal seam. Recently, the West Elk Mine incorporated other leased federal coal reserves to their State-approved mine permit, and operations will be moving into unmined reserves in the E coal seam in the next few years. In addition, MCC leased additional E Seam reserves to the southeast of existing operations, which are a logical extension of existing operations. Based on experience mining other coal reserves at the West Elk Mine, it is anticipated that underground mining operations will encounter quantities of naturally-occurring methane gas that left uiunitigated, will create hazardous working conditions iii the underground mine. In order to continue operations to recover leased federal coal reserves, the excess methane must be evacuated from the underground workings to reduce the explosion hazard and maintain gas levels at safe operating conditions. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has requirements that underground coal mines maintain methane concentrations that are one percent or less. The method demonstrated to be most effective in evacuating methane gas from the underground workings is to install vertical methane drainage wells (MDW) from the land surface into the mine workings. In some places, MDWs drilled at an angle (i.e. `directionally drilled') are also effective. Therefore, MCC has proposed a project to install MDWs into the E Seam mining operations. Since 2001, the GMUG and the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Regional Office have analyzed and approved several methane drainage projects to continue operations at the West Elk Mine (see section Other Analyses Completed in the Vicinity of the Project Area). These project decisions approved about 70 methane drainage well locations and over 20 miles of road construction. Some of these activities have occurred in the West Elk Inventoried Roadless Area (West Elk IRA). Operations and contemporaneous reclamation have been on-going since these approvals were given. Implementation of these previous decisions resulted in field data from the B Seam which may be extrapolated for the E Seam which will assist in this analysis. In addition, as part of beginning to mine the E seam reserves, the mine plan and the MSHA required ventilation plan also call for an additional ventilation shaft and escapeway (called the Deer Creek shaft) to support the mine ventilation system, and provide for underground worker safety. The access for this shaft has been approved under a previous NEPA decision (2006) for geotechnical work and has already been constructed. Actual construction and operation of the shaft are included in the proposed action considered in this EIS. This enviroiunental impact statement considers the effects of installing MDWs and a ventilation shaft and escapeway to facilitate continued operations to recover leased federal coal reserves. Purpose of and Need for Action The Forest Service has identified the need to respond, via its concurrence role in the state coal mine permitting process, to a mine permit action and future mine permit action handled by the Colorado DBMS (and further resulting in an Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement mining plan modification due to the preparation of this EIS 30 CFR § 746.18(d)(5)) that would approve MCC (operator of the West Elk underground coal mine) to construct, operate, and reclaim up to 146 methane drainage well sites that would support 168 individual MDWs, one ventilation and escapeway facility, and use or construction of approximately 22.6 miles of Deer Creek Ventilation Shaft and E Seam Methane Drainage Wells FEIS S-1