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<br />PRONGHORN <br />Geologic Services <br />P.O. Box 4344, Gillette, Wyoming 82717 <br />Office 307-682-8254 Cellular 307-689-2358 <br />November 14, 2008 <br />Re: ABANDONMENT PROCEDURES, KERR COAL MONITOR WELLS. WALDEN, CO <br />Ms. Janet Binns <br />Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining & Safety <br />1313 Sherman Street, Room 215 <br />Denver, Colorado 80203 <br />Dear Ms. Binns, <br />I am pleased to submit the Well Abandonment Report for the remaining water monitor wells for the <br />Kerr Coal Mine in Jackson County of Colorado on behalf of the Kerr Coal Company of Florence <br />Colorado. <br />As we discussed over the telephone today, a short discussion of our reclaiming procedures would be <br />in order. Pronghom Geologic Services gained the contract services of RACS LLC to . provide a <br />120CT double drum Pulling Unit. This unit is truck _ mounted and easily accessed the well sites at _ <br />Kerr Mine- Associated flat bed trailers-and a rubber-tired backhoe completed the contract <br />equipment. <br />Each well site was completed as a long-term monitoring well site for water levels and quality for the <br />life of the Kerr Coal Mine. Now long backfilled and reclaimed, the need for these monitor well sites <br />has also passed. Sites 79-1, 79-2 & 79-3 were cased with 2" PVC. Sites 79-61 & AO-2(A) were <br />cased with 4" PVC. In order to make sure these wells were adequately sealed, each well casing was <br />"shot' with a perforating gun to provide a conduit to the open-hole portion of each monitor well. The <br />exception was AO-2(A), which was simply pulled out the ground with the backhoe. <br />After perforating the wells, the Pulling Unit setup on each well site. A well diverter was attached to <br />the top of each monitor well. AQ size well rods were run through the well diverter to the bottom of <br />each monitor well to "punch out" the end cap located at the bottom of the well. This procedure then <br />gave us the well perforations from the perforating gun, the well slots in the monitor well and a hole at <br />the bottom of the casing for cement slurry transfer from the interior of the casing into the backside of <br />the well casing (the open hole). A pumping hose was attached to the diverter and water-cement <br />slurry was pumped under a 25-psi pressure into the well rods near the bottom of the well casing. <br />The well''rods were removed and pumping: continued-until the cement s4urry was- circulated through- <br />the open hole to the well surface. The well was allowed. to-settle and another bat& of slurry was <br />pumped into- the well and circulated to the-surface. -The diverter was removed, and- the PVC.-casing <br />was broken off below the surface of the ground with the backhoe. A non-slip octo-plug was pushed