2010-06-24_REVISION - M2000158 (7)

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Mr. Jared Ebert June 22, 2010 Page 2 7 CIVIL RES"IDURCES 5) There are many lines drawn on the Exhibit C Map, some of these lines are depicted on the Legend, however some of them are not Please remove any superfluous lines or indicate what they are on the legend. Please refer to Exhibit C Mining Plan Map for the revisions noted above. 6) Please highlight the location of the additional 269.23 acres of the permit area. The Mining Plan Map now shows the existing and proposed permit boundaries. 6.4.4 EXHIBIT D - Mining Plan 7) It appears the site will be mined in six distinctive cells. At this time, there appears to be mining occurring in cell C1 and cell B. Based on the current pit excavations please provide a sequence/schedule for each mining cell for slurry wall installation, embankment/dam construction, and when each cell will be mined? This information will be very important when it comes to calculating a proper bond. Future mining is proposed to be limited to areas inside the toe of each respective cell. The operator is in the process of reclaiming mined areas that are outside of the proposed cells' respective footprints with active mining continued inside of Cell C1 and the west half of Cell B inside of the toe of the proposed storage cells which is within the existing slurry wall. The other cells will be mined one cell at a time and will not be mined until the slurry wall is in place and has been approved by the Office of the State Engineer (SEO) or when an adequate augmentation water is provided to address depletions. Please note that reclamation after the embankments are constructed will be negligible because the operator will mine at 3:1 slopes and the reservoirs will be available for water storage no matter how much gravel has been removed. In fact, the landowner will likely begin storing water in the reservoirs long before mining has been completed. The likely construction sequence and schedule is included in Attachment A. The Operator will install the slurry wall and construct the embankment for a particular cell prior to moving to the next pond. The landowner anticipates that all of the cells will be constructed within the next 18 months. 8) Enclosed with this review is a letter from Weld County in regards to the placement of fill within the floodplain for the construction of the embankments. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), require a Conditional Letter of Map Revision (CLOMR) to be approved prior to the placement of fill in the floodplain. Prior to the Division's approval of the amendment, the applicant must submit evidence they have received FEMA approval. As for the adequacy review comment #8, the Division will no longer require the applicant to submit evidence a CLOMR was approved by FEMA. What the Division will require is documentation indicating a CLOMR is not necessary from the Town of Milliken and/or FEMA. This project was annexed into the Town of Milliken and is therefore not in Weld County's jurisdiction. Milliken (and Weld County) has adopted FEMA Regulations (44 CFR 60.4(d)) for work within the floodplain and associated criteria. Refer to Attachment B.1 for an email from Milliken's Planner (Mr. Steve House) and Milliken's floodplain regulations. Civil Resources also confirmed that FEMA regulations do not require the CLOMR process and that the specific intent of mapping a floodway as we did already is to define the limit of allowable encroachment. An email from FEMA (Michael Baker's Mr. Joe Kueckenmeister) with the appropriate 44 CFR reference material is included in Attachment 6.2. Civil Resources has gone the through the additional effort to demonstrate that the net effect of the proposed floodplain activities to be less than one foot (no impact on floodway) as shown on the figure included in Attachment B.