2009-01-09_INSPECTION - M1977211

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TRANSIT MIX AGGREGATES January 9, 2009 Mr. Dustan Crelly United States Department of Labor Mine Safety Health Administration Rocky Mountain District PO Box 25367 DFC Denver, CO. 25367-0367 Re: Pikeview Quarry Dear Dustan, I-A- 1 Vt The purpose of this letter is to address a couple of items. First, to update MSHA as to what has occurred since the slide occurred on the 2"d of December. As you can imagine it has been somewhat overwhelming. We are currently evaluating the best long term monitoring method to be used at the quarry. Yenter Companies has provided us with a proposal and we had Dr. Ugur Ozbay, Department Chair, Mine Engineering, Colorado School of Mines and Mr. S. Patel, Old Castle Materials, down to the site for their thoughts as to the best methods. Mr. Patel is a graduate mine engineer from the South Dakota School of Mines and has spent the last 25 years mining a limestone quarry in Rapid City, South Dakota. Mr. Patel and our president were class mates and Jerry felt his hands on experience would serve us well. Currently a total robotic station with the ability to laser scan the quarry face on a daily basis seems most promising. It seemed to be the general consensus of people like Paul Donahue and Eric Gottheld from MSHA and Berhan Keffelew, Reclamation, Mining and Safety along with Mark Heifner, Southwest Ecological, that we ought to take 30 days and just observe what is going on with the site. At their recommendation we also set up some basic monitoring devices. They are located on three different scarps at the site to help determine if any movement is occurring. These include the most southern scarp, the scarp that crosses the road and one on the north end of the quarry. Between December 2"d, the day of the slide, and December 3`d the scarp on the south end opened up. The pictures on the enclosed CD will show the southern scarp. Directly adjacent to the slide we have experienced some rock falling. This appears to be more associated with gravity and conditions than anything. What I mean is we have had several snows on the mountain and successive thawing. At the edge of the slide on some of the vertical surfaces lose material has fallen. On the north end of the quarry we are seeing no movement. As you can see the north end did not experience the slide to the extent of the south and middle peaks. The second part of this letter is to propose a couple of items. We would like to be able to open the existing road that serviced the bench that the drill is located on. Yenter Companies have been unable to remove the drill during this ordeal. The drill is depicted by the orange circle between the green bench lines on the photos. A road already exists and was bermed closed after the slide. This is the road that the drill used to enter the area. We would also like to be able to remove the two pieces of equipment located south of the drill. We would propose doing this at the same time Yenter removes the drill so that all monitoring equipment and personnel would be in place. There is an existing pile of rubbled material on the east side of the lowest bench. This material can be flattened enough without disturbing any of the material at the toe of the slide to allow for the equipment to access the existing haul road. Third, I would like to ask that we be allowed to process material that is not in an area affected by the slide. The area is depicted by the blue rectangle on the photo along with an existing stockpile area. This area is a haul road that facilitates our off road trucks getting to the feed hopper. We would reconfigure our haul route to the east of the existing haul road and mine the road from a southeast to northwest direction. This Castle Concrete Div. Transit Mix of Pueblo Daniels Sand Div. P.O. Box 2379, Colorado Springs, CO 80901 P.O. Box 857, Pueblo, CO 81002 P.O. Box 1030, Colorado Springs, CO 80901 Office 719-598-0215 Fax 719-598-3053 Office 719-561-8350 Fax 719-566-0231 Office 719-392-8018 Fax 719-392-0458