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investigation. GRI's report, dated July 16, 2010, was forwarded to the Division, BLM and to the CHS. In <br />a follow up letter dated October 13, 2010, the CHS concurred with the finding of the BLM that no historic <br />properties would be affected by the activities proposed in PR12. <br />Also responding to the PR-12 adequacy review was the BLM. In a letter dated March 22, 2010, the BLM <br />verified that the federal leases associated with the proposed transferred permit area are still in effect for <br />Bowie Resources LLC. In addition, the BLM sent a notice dated April 29, 2010 requesting comments on <br />the proposed lease modification to add additional acreage to one of the existing coal leases. <br />BRL forwarded an e-mail dated May 25, 2010 in which Delta County Planning and Community <br />Development stated that no review of PR-12 on a county level was needed. <br />In a letter dated May 14, 2010, the Division sent its first set of adequacy review questions to BRL, <br />followed by adequacy review letters dated July 7, 2010, August 2, 2010, August 6, 2010 and November 1, <br />2010. BRL responded in submittals dated June 1, 2010, July 8, 2010, August 5, 2010, November 5, 2010 <br />and November 11, 2010. In addition, two meetings were held in Grand Junction in late October and early <br />November of 2010 between BRL and the Division regarding ground water issues. <br />In a letter dated June 14, 2010, the BLM sent the Division a letter stating that all of the federal coal leases <br />relevant to PR-12 have been issued and approved, except for the one lease modification for the new <br />permit area addition. Because lease modification FCL-D-036955 was still pending at the time of the <br />proposed decision for PR-12, BRL removed the lease modification from consideration in PR-12. <br />However, the lease modification will be resubmitted in a future technical revision. Stipulation No. 28 was <br />added to the PR-12 proposed decision as a result. <br />In a letter dated September 3, 2010, the Bureau of Reclamation informed the Division that they wanted <br />additional time to review PR-12. After reviewing the PR-12 information with BRL's consultant, the <br />Bureau of Reclamation sent a letter dated September 14, 2010 in which they had no further comment with <br />PR-12 as submitted. <br />The Division performed two checks of the Applicant Violator System and found no outstanding <br />violations or issues. <br />Description of the Environment <br />The Bowie No. 2 coal mine permit area currently includes 5945 surface acres, of which 2692 acres are <br />privately owned and 3253 acres are federally managed. Approval of PR-12 would add 2203 acres to the <br />permit area, 1944.6 acres of which are private surface and 258.4 acres of which are federal surface. All of <br />the PR-12 acres are federal mineral acreage. The coal and the surface lands within the present permit area <br />are both federally and privately owned, as are the surface areas that have been disturbed by surface <br />developments. With PR-12, the total approved disturbed area by surface operations is 318.5 acres. <br />The Bowie No. 2 Mine is located in Delta County, approximately five (5) miles northeast of Paonia, <br />Colorado. The mine permit area is located on lands depicted on the U. S. Geological Survey 7.5 minute <br />Bowie Quadrangle Map, and the Bowie No. 2 mine portals are located northwest of the Old King Mine <br />portals (also known as the Bowie Mine). The surface facilities are located north and south of Old State <br />Highway 133 near the old townsite of Bowie. The current permit area generally is located from Hubbard <br />Creek to the east to Terror Creek to the west. With the approval of PR-12, the western boundary of the <br />permit area would extend just west of Steven's Gulch. A portion of the surface facilities is within 100 feet <br />of the outside right-of-way of old State Highway 133. The location of these facilities extends from the old <br />14