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Not all roads within coal mine permit boundaries fall under our jurisdiction. Roads built by landowners within <br />coal mine permit boundaries after our permits are issued, for purposes other than those directly related to <br />surface coal mining operations, would in most cases not be regulated by us. Additionally, pre-existing roads <br />within permit areas may also not fall under our jurisdiction, unless used by a permittee for reasons associated <br />with surface coal mining and reclamation operations. However, a new road proposed for construction by a <br />permittee in conjunction with conducting geotechnical investigations related to a future expansion of a coal <br />mine waste disposal facility falls squarely within our jurisdiction. <br />Our rules require persons conducting "surface coal mining and reclamation operations" (Rule 1.04(133)) to <br />design roads that fall within our jurisdiction in accordance with applicable regulatory criteria. In this case, the <br />category of road described in our regulations that would be the most applicable to this proposed project would <br />be a "Light-Use Road" (Rule 1.04(111)). Rule 4.03.3(1) states, " Each person who conducts surface coal mining <br />operations shall (not may) design, construct or reconstruct, utilize, and maintain light-use roads to control or <br />prevent erosion and siltation, air and water pollution, and damage to public or private property". As such, Light- <br />Use Roads must be designed in accordance with the criteria found in Rule 4.03.3 (note that Rule 4.03.3(3) <br />"Design and construction" allows the use of "field-design methods" for Light-Use Roads). It is possible that the <br />West Elk Permit may already contain a generic set of Light-Use Road designs. As such, reference to this generic <br />Light-Use Road design may allow MCC to avoid submitting new designs for this proposed new road. <br />The MR-354 application includes a proposal to drill one borehole into the workings of the abandoned Oliver <br />Mine, for the purpose of verifying the extent of the underground workings of that abandoned mine. While the <br />drilling and reclamation of a borehole in and of itself would in most cases not require processing by a Technical <br />Revision, drilling into an abandoned mine, especially one in which the seam mined in that mine may be <br />smoldering, raises our need to conduct a somewhat higher level of adequacy review than we might for <br />boreholes otherwise proposed solely for geotechnical data gathering. I had earlier indicated to Tom that I <br />thought this could be handled in conjunction with an MR; upon further reflection, however, I believe we should <br />be somewhat more cautious with our review, and request that the Oliver Mine borehole be part of a TR. <br />I appreciate MCC's investigation of past CDRMS permitting actions at the West Elk Mine relative to this <br />application in an effort to support MCC's position that the activity proposed by this application should be <br />processed as an MR. It should be noted, however, that we have recently (within the last year or so) discussed <br />with MCC our observation that over the years there has been a sort of gradual "creep" with regard to the types <br />of activities approved via MRs at West Elk. We have informed MCC that we are attempting to reverse this <br />whenever appropriate so that proposed activities that rise to the level of being required to be processed via a TR <br />are in fact processed as via a TR rather than an MR. If MCC believes other mining operations in the area are <br />receiving somewhat more favorable decisions with regard to proposed activities being processed as MRs vs TRs, <br />I believe that that is a matter that should be brought to the attention of the Coal Program supervisor. <br />With regard to the timing of a TR taking 50 days, I believe some of this is related to the public notification <br />requirements of our rules for Technical Revisions, and the frequency of publication by the local newspaper most <br />often used by MCC and CDRMS to publish our respective public notices. Unfortunately, while we cannot revise <br />our regulatory requirements regarding public notices associated with the processing of Technical Revisions, it is <br />possible that MCC and CDRMS may use a different newspaper with more favorable publication frequency that <br />would still meet the requirement of being "a local newspaper of general circulation in the locality of said <br />operation" (Rules 2.07.3(2), 2.08.4(6)(b)(ii) and 2.08.4(6)(b)(iii)) . I think that a review of a TR may theoretically <br />take less time than 50 days, perhaps as little as 25 days (the maximum amount of time for an MR as described in <br />the regulations without the need for extensions is 20 days), depending on the complexity (or lack thereof ) of <br />the proposed activities, the quality of the submittal, the publishing frequency of the newspaper used, and the <br />types of comments from the public or governmental agencies that we may receive or request input from.