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-PuLo <br />7 <br />January 17, 2010 <br />The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety <br />Attention: Sandy Brown or Marcia Talvitie (RE: Western Fuels Permit Revision) <br />1313 Sherman Street, Room 215 <br />Denver, Colorado 80203 <br />Dear Ms. Brown; <br />Vrelev0 <br />Kec?ama4on, <br />pi??swn o? ?fety <br />Mining and <br />This letter is in response to the request by Western Fuel for a Permit Revision for the New Horizon 2 <br />mine in Nucla, Colorado. This will clarify some information you may have received, will ask some <br />questions, and will present the request of the owners of the Lloyd property, which is included in this <br />revision and is located west of the Benson property and north of the Morgan property. <br />Western Fuel may not know all the history about our property. Here is some clarification of information <br />in the packet sent to us by Western fuel: <br />1. We have leased approximately 80 acres to Western Fuel. On page 3 of the information packet, <br />reference is made to our 38.86 acres next to the Benson property, but does not mention the <br />north part of our property which had several fields with deep soil, where corn, oats or alfalfa <br />were grown when I lived there and was farming. We had leased the property to Gordon Smith <br />for over 10 years prior to Western Fuel stopping our use of the land and starting to mine coal. <br />Gordon had planted wheat in one or two fields at the north end of the property for several <br />years. <br />2. On page 4 of the information packet, a statement was made that there had not been any active <br />farming for at least 15 years. Gordon Smith irrigated the pasture and raised wheat several years. <br />He used this for pasture for his livestock. <br />3. When I was farming this property, I was able to irrigate all of the more level ground, except for a <br />few small ridges, on the south three/fourths of the property as well as the field down by Tuttle <br />Draw. Gordon Smith was able to irrigate this same amount of land with the same number of <br />shares of water that I had years ago. <br />Here are the questions that we have: <br />1. Prior to moving to Michigan, I lived and worked in Scottsdale, Arizona for seven years. This is <br />within 15 miles of Mesa, Arizona, which was used by Western Fuel in their water evaporation <br />rate comparison with Nucla, Colorado and in their calculation of the number of acres our 24 <br />shares of CCC water will be able to irrigate. The elevation of the farmland around Mesa and <br />Scottsdale ranges between 1100 feet to 1600 feet above mean sea level. The daily high <br />temperatures from late June till early August would often be between 110 degrees to 115 <br />degrees Fahrenheit. With the elevation of Nucla farmland over 4000 feet higher in elevation and <br />temperatures rarely over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the evaporation of water would not be as <br />rapid as in Mesa, AZ. THEREFORE, is this a valid comparison for calculations?