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II. SUMMARY OF THE BOND RELEASE PROCESS <br />Reclamation History of the Permit Area <br />Mining operations <br />Permit C-81-025 is comprised of two underground coal mines, the North Thompson Creek Mine No. <br />1 and the North Thompson Creek Mine No. 3 (collectively referred to below as the North Thompson <br />Creek Mines). Permit C-81-025 also includes the former location of a truck dump and coal loadout. <br />Other local coal mines are not part of Permit C-81-025 (for example, the North Thompson Creek No. <br />2 Mine and the Anderson Mine). <br />Coal mining has been conducted on the mine site since 1911. The Snowmass Coal Company <br />actively mined coal from the North Thompson Creek Mines from 1971 through 1984. Snowmass <br />was issued permanent program permit C-025-81 on August 15, 1983, which subsequently was re- <br />numbered as C-81-025. The No. 1 Mine mined coal from the A Seam using continuous miner <br />machines and a longwall machine. The No. 3 Mine mined coal from the Anderson Seam using <br />continuous miner machines. Pillars were extracted from the continuous miner sections of the No. 1 <br />and No. 3 Mines. <br />From the surface facilities area at the North Thompson Creek Mine portals, the coal was trucked via <br />Pitkin County Road 1 and Garfield County 108 to a truck dump on the west side of the Roaring Fork <br />River, approximately 8 miles from the portals. From the truck dump, the coal was carried across the <br />river by a conveyor belt to a unit train rail loadout on the east side of the river where the coal was <br />loaded into rail cars for shipment to the mines' customers. <br />The North Thompson Creek Mines entered temporary cessation status on July 31, 1984 and <br />permanent cessation status on August 15, 1986. The underground workings in the No. 1 and No. 3 <br />Mines began filling with water in 1986. Longwall mining shields and a shearer were left <br />underground in the No. 1 Mine. Reclamation of the mine site had begun during mining operations in <br />1979 when part of the refuse disposal area was seeded. The following reclamation tasks were <br />completed in 1986 and 1987 in the mine surface facilities area and the refuse disposal area: removal <br />of surface facilities, sealing and backfilling of portals, backfilling and grading of the disturbed area, <br />and seeding of the disturbed area. Topsoil in the surface facilities area had not been saved during the <br />early years of mining. Topsoil was imported for reclamation of part of the refuse disposal area. <br />Topsoil had been salvaged at the loadout site. The loadout site was reclaimed in 1987, including <br />backfilling, grading, topsoil replacement and seeding. Four surface water monitoring flumes were <br />removed from North and Middle Thompson Creeks in 2002 (two in each stream). Piezometers D-1 A <br />and D-2A were sealed in 2007. A three-pond passive mine water treatment system remains in <br />operation in the Developed Water Resources Area on approximately 4.1 acres of land near the portal <br />of the No. 1 Mine. <br />5