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111. COMMENTS - COMPLIANCE Colowyo C-1981-019 27 May 2009 `zC" Pg 1/7 Below are comments on the inspection. The comments include discussion of observations made during the inspection. Comments also describe any enforcement actions taken during the inspection and the facts or evidence supporting the enforcement action. This was a complete inspection of the Colowyo Mine conducted by Jim Stark of CDRMS. The inspection was conducted on 27 and 28 May 2009. Jennifer Sekulski of CCC accompanied me on the inspection on 27 May 2009 and Ryan Pawlowski accompanied me on the inspection on 28 May 2009. The mine was actively mining coal and hauling coal to the loadout at the time of the inspection. The weather was warm and sunny and the ground had some muddy spots from rain at the site over the past few days. TR-72 Meeting: On the afternoon of 28 May 2009 1 met with Tay Tonozzi and Kurtis Blunt regarding the outstanding Technical Revisions 72 at the site. This revision is a new reclamation plan for the West Pit and South Taylor Pit. Two outstanding issues remain with the revision. The first is that the Division is requiring a more detailed topsoil replacement plan. In TR-72 Colowyo has proposed to vary topsoil replacement depths on the regraded areas of the West Pit and South Taylor Pit. The Division believes that the plan needs more detail in both text and map form. Additionally, the Division has requested a plan for the verification of the variable topsoil replacement depths. At the meeting we discussed what the plan would require, which was basically the same as the information contained in the Division's fourth adequacy letter, sent on 19 May 2009. The Division is looking for a more detailed map or graphical representation of the topsoil replacement, with zones of 0"-8" and 8"-16" for the West Pit and 0"-8", 14"-20" and 24"+ for the South Taylor Pit, The Division is also requiring Colowyo to not only provide load counts for average topsoil replacement over an area of reclamation but to also dig several test pits in the topsoil along the replacement area. We discussed what a basic topsoil depth verification plan would look like, including the need to dig several pits in each replacement zone, both vertically and horizontally (on a map) in order to verify that both variable and average replacement depths are met. The Division believes that, based on the discussions, Colowyo will provide an adequate variable topsoil replacement plan, as outlined in the fourth adequacy letter. The second issue we discussed was the requirement to replace 20 acres of aspen/tall shrub areas in thick topsoil and 20 acres of tall shrub/bitterbrush communities in the South Taylor area. This requirement is based on the wildlife component of the post- mining land use. There was no resolution on this issue as Colowyo does not believe that the replacement of these vegetative communities would be beneficial to the post-mining land use. The Division has proposed to stipulate this portion of the revision as well as the topsoil replacement portion and propose a decision.