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III. COMMENTS -COMPLIANCE <br />Below are comments on the inspection. The comments include discussion of observations made <br />during the inspection. Comments also describe any enforcement actions taken during the inspection <br />and the facts or evidence supporting the enforcement action. <br />Background <br />The purpose of this inspection was to examine the success of Bowie Resources LLC in preventing <br />material damage and diminution of reasonably foreseeable use of structures and renewable resource <br />lands due to subsidence at the Bowie No. 2 Mine. The inspection was oversighted by the Office of <br />Surface Mining (OSM) as part of their Special Focus Topic review. Present were Bill Bear and <br />consultant Jim Stover, representing Bowie Resources LLC (BRL), Howard Strand and Elizabeth <br />Schaeffer, representing the OSM oversight team and Joe Dudash, representing the Colorado Division <br />of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (Division). <br />On July 6, 2009, the Division met with the OSM oversight team at the Division's offices in order to <br />review permit application information that was pertinent to subsidence. Examined were the Bowie No. <br />2 mine plan, the inventory of structures and renewable resource lands, the approved subsidence <br />monitoring program and the last two subsidence monitoring reports. The review concentrated on <br />subsidence effects from mining that had occurred in the last 24 months. In the office review, it was <br />determined that the mining that had occurred in the last 24 months involved the B-seam longwall <br />panels B-6 and B-7, which are located beneath Freeman Gulch. The B-seam coal mining in this area, <br />however, had occurred underneath the previously mined D-seam coal, so subsidence due to the coal <br />extraction of two overlying coal seams, or double seam mining, had occurred. This permit application <br />information was also put onto a compact disc and sent to OSM for their further review. <br />The field inspection concentrated on verification of structures, renewable resource lands and <br />subsidence monuments over longwall panels B-6 and B-7 in Freeman Gulch. Since subsidence could <br />cause seismic events, BRL had prepared geotechnical studies and set up a geotechnical and seismic <br />monitoring program to monitor the Bruce Park Dam and the adjacent landslide. Although the seismic <br />monitoring program was not included in the Special Topic Oversight, the Bruce Park Dam area was <br />visited during the field inspection. <br />Subsidence Special Focus Topic Inspection <br />Using a map provided by BRL's consultant, Jim Stover, the subsidence inspection began in Freeman <br />Gulch with subsidence monuments 8-A, 8-13, 8-C and 8-D. These monuments are located over a <br />section of the B-6 longwall panel which had been mined in about December of 2007. These <br />monuments are also positioned over a section of D-seam longwall panel D-3, which had been mined <br />back in April of 2001. The total subsidence at each of the four monuments averaged about 10 feet in <br />drop. This fairly large magnitude in subsidence was the result of double seam mining and had been <br />predicted in BRL's subsidence analysis. Just to the south of these four subsidence monuments lies <br />stock pond P-2. The stock pond was dry. <br />There were no visual observations of subsidence in the area of these four subsidence monuments <br />and stock pond P-2. The vegetation was very dense and obscured any evidence of cracks in rock <br />strata. There was no evidence of any cracking in the P-2 stock pond embankment or pond bottom. <br />There also was no evidence of subsidence cracks in the dirt road. Any such cracking would have <br />healed naturally in the approximately 18 months since mining had ceased in this location.