2010-08-16_REVISION - C1981008 ‎(9)‎

• Permit No: C1981008
• IBM Index Class Name: REVISION
• Doc Date: 8/16/2010
• Doc Name: Response to Land Owner Coordination Issues
• From: Western Fuels-Colorado
• To: DRMS
• Type & Sequence: PR6
• Email Name: MLT
• Email Name: DAB
• Email Name: SB1
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

August 13, 2010
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David Berry
Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety
Western Fuels-Colorado Department of Natural Resources
P.O. Box 628 1313 Sherman St., Room 215
Nuclo, Colorado 81424 Denver, Colorado 80203
Re: PR06 and Landowner Coordination.Issues
Telephone [phone]
Fax [phone] Dear David:
This letter requests approval by DRMS of the Permit Revision No. 6 ("PR06")
submitted by Western Fuels - Colorado LLC ("WFC") or, in the alternative,
clarification of DRMS's position concerning the extent to which WFC will be
required to "coordinate directly with the landowner to address and resolve the
ongoing complaints" with regard specifically to the complaints raised by JoEllen
Turner on behalf of the Morgan family. The quoted language is taken from your
letter to me dated May 18, 2010. On closer review of the letter and the regulatory
and statutory provisions you cited (which I requested from our legal counsel), I
find the letter, and in particular the quoted statement, inaccurate and troubling in
several respects, leading to this request that you clarify the Division's position.
As you are no doubt aware based on your own personal experience in dealing with
Ms. Turner, the dispute between her and WFC is particularly intractable and
acrimonious, and this state of affairs, to put it mildly, cannot be attributed entirely
to WFC's conduct. Nevertheless, at the urging of DRMS and consistent with
WFC's policy in dealing with all landowners as we have for the past 18 years of
operation, we have gone to extraordinary lengths to reach agreement with her on
all the substantive issues affecting the land owned by the Morgan family. Those
efforts, including some of the notable successes in our discussions with the
Morgans, were described to you in our extensive comment letter dated July 2,
2010. Since that submittal, WFC has met with Ms. Turner face-to-face in two
sessions that lasted 3 hours or longer, and even, at DRMS's suggestion, tendered
to her and the Morgan family a written apology for the errors that were made prior
to 2008.
The results of these efforts were characteristic of WFC's experience over the years
in dealing with Ms. Turner. On the one hand, we reached agreement on several
remaining issues having to do with the reclamation of the Morgan property. The
apology letter did contribute to creating a more constructive tone for the
interactions we had once it was delivered. Indeed we now feel that on all issues
actually relating to protection of the Morgan family's prime farmlands, the parties