2009-04-29_REVISION - M1980146 - Laserfiche WebLink

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s • Reclamation works and sequential extraction of material shall be initiated to keep the i total disturbed areas at any one time to a minimum. • Material stockpiles shall be watered as necessary to control fugitive particulate emissions. Aggregate materials shall be sprayed with water during material loading into the storage bins of stockpiles. • Plant entryway, truck service roads, and concrete batching areas shall be graveled. Water shall be implemented if emission guidelines above are not met. • On crushers, spray bars shall be used if material moisture content is insufficient to control particulate emissions. All water currently used in dust abatement and mine operation equipment is purchased from the City of Durango; dust abatement and mine operation equipment planned for use in the Proposed Action will also be purchased from the City of Durango. Topsoiling, reseeding, and revegetation activities would be performed in accordance with specifications detailed in the DRMS and BLM permits for the Proposed Action. I ral e r e Cultural resource studies in southwestern Colorado demonstrate about 10,000 to 12,000 years of human occupation and use. These findings are represented by prehistoric Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Basketmaker (BMII-BMIII), Fremont, Ancestral Puebloan (PI-PIV), protohistoric Ute and Navajo, and historic Native-American and Euro-American culture traditions. General descriptions of these can be found in recent comprehensive archaeological context documents for this area: Colorado Prehistory: A Context for the Southern Colorado River Basin (Lipe, Varien and Wilshusen 1999) and Colorado History: A Context for Historical Archaeology (Church et. al., 2007) and will not be re-iterated here. Along the Animas River through the Durango area and across the uplands adjacent to the river, all the culture traditions listed above have been found and documented with the exception of three. There are no paleo-Indian sites, Fremont-affiliated sites, or Ancestral Puebloan PH - PIV sites documented as yet. Most sites consist of late Archaic/BMII and BMIII/PI habitations (usually pithouses) or groups of BMIII/PI habitations (hamlets) and associated activity areas nearby: artifact scatters, camps, fieldhouses, rock shelters and rock art sites that date from about 400 AD through 830 AD. These sites demonstrate a gradual transition from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to a more sedentary agricultural subsistence for peoples living in this area during the first millennium AD. Several important prehistoric archaeological studies along the Animas River corridor and its major tributaries in the Durango area have shown that the valley and adjacent upland areas were heavily inhabited with literally hundreds of pithouses and associated features. Morris and Burgh (1954) excavated several Basketmaker sites near Durango and found long-term habitations and villages with deep midden deposits representing long-term occupations. These were located in a wide variety of environments including rock shelters, talus slopes, mesa tops and river terrace deposits adjacent to the Animas River. There is evidence that the atl-atl was still in use at several of these sites in early times, and that at many of the sites rudimentary ceramics were being made, though not frequently until later. Work done in preparation for the Animas-La Plata reservoir project and for the removal of uranium mill tailings to nearby Ridges Basin revealed a high density of small late Archaic, Basketmaker-II, Basketmaker-III and Pueblo-I residential hamlets and individual residence sites in Ridges Basin, an east-flowing tributary to the Animas Grandview Gravel Pit Expansion Environmental Assessment 16