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37. Without giving Cotter any opportunity to respond, the Board almost immediately <br />voted to accept the Division's recommendations of finding three violations against- Cotter and <br />ordering Cotter to undertake all corrective actions identified by the Division. <br />38. On July 27, 2010, the Board delivered to Cotter a draft of its Findings of Fact, <br />Conclusions of Law, and Order ("Draft Order"), on which Cotter made redline comments and <br />corrections. Cotter returned its mark-up of the Draft Order on July 30, 2010, along with a <br />document captioned "Attachment 1," which was a report from Susan Wyman rebutting certain of <br />the Division's testimony from the July 12, 2010 hearing, particularly the technical complexity of <br />the Division's proposed solution and the evidence, or lack thereof, of water from the mine pool <br />reaching Ralston Creek. <br />39. On August 11, 2010, the Board issued its Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, <br />and Order ("August 2010 Order"). The August 2010 Order explicitly stated that the Board <br />refused to consider Attachment 1 to Cotter's response to the Draft Order. The Board repeatedly <br />acknowledged in the August 2010 Order that evidence on many of the points related to whether <br />water from the mine pool was reaching Ralston Creek was disputed at best. <br />40. The Board then began making a number of leaps of logic unsupported by the <br />record. For example, the Board stated that the "Division considers the costs of the corrective <br />actions less than the costs of cleaning the water in Ralston Creek and Reservoir," although the <br />Division itself at the hearing evaded the question of relative cost-benefit and the Denver and <br />Arvada witnesses were unable to articulate the costs, if any, attributable to contamination <br />allegedly coming from the Mine's site in general, let alone the mine pool in particular. <br />41. The August 2010 Order concluded by ordering Cotter to reinitiate a water <br />treatment system to treat all water reporting to Sump No. 1 by no later than July 31, 2010 (which <br />Cotter had already complied with by its Technical Revisions Nos. 12 and 13), reinitiate mine <br />dewatering and water treatment "sufficient to bring the mine water table to a level at least 500 <br />feet below the Steve Level, and sufficient to reestablish a hydraulic gradient away from Ralston <br />Creek," to be implemented by August 31, 2010, provide appropriate financial warranties to cover <br />the cost of these changes, and submit a permit amendment to address the EPP and associated <br />financial warranty, as well as imposing the maximum possible civil penalty of $1,000 a day for a <br />total of $55,000, although all but $2,500 would be suspended if Cotter complied with the August <br />2010 Order's deadlines. <br />42. On August 31, 2010, Cotter filed a Petition for Reconsideration of Findings of <br />Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order with the Board, pursuant to Rule 2.9, 2 Colo. Code Regs. <br />407-1 ("Petition for Reconsideration"). <br />43. The Petition for Reconsideration detailed numerous factual and legal defects in <br />the August 2010 Order, including pointing to specific testimony and other evidence in the record <br />that contradicted the Board's conclusions. Also included with the Petition for Reconsideration <br />was a further report from Susan Wyman analyzing the defects of the Division's "pump-and- <br />treat" solution for the mine pool and discussing additional evidence as to why not pumping and <br />8