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Varra Companies, Inc. <br />Office of Special Projects <br />8120 Gage Street Frederick, Colorado 80516 Telephone (970) 353-8310 Fax(970)353-4047 <br />The Applicant understands the concerns of the OMLR but believes it is <br />attempting to enforce an unwritten guideline or policy as if it were law. We see <br />no written guidelines to suggest that UDFCD guidance documents will be used <br />by the OMLR, and have no historic perspective as to when and under what <br />circumstance the OMLR has utilized them? It is our opinion that there is no <br />compelling need to perfect engineered studies or subsequent placement of <br />engineered structures on an operation of this kind and scale, where the cost of <br />the studies and structures will no doubt exceed the cost of repairing such an <br />eventuality, should it ever occur. <br />While the Applicant is aware of the concerns for intrusion of rivers into active <br />extraction activities, several other factors should be considered by the OMLR. <br />First, the use of UDFCD standards is for unstable stream segments, such as <br />those determined within established districts, and principally determined for <br />those impacted locations .along the South Platte River. The OMLR admits this <br />condition is not present at this location. To then add that the conditions apply <br />by assuming the conditions may exist is existential at best. There is no <br />compelling evidence that such circumstances are at play. <br />There is no evidence that the stream segment of the Cache La Poudre River is <br />unstable as it runs its course parallel to this location. There is no evidence of <br />past flood impacts on the attending unaffected segments of the site. There <br />appear to be no rills, gullies, stream placed debris, or other evidences of <br />catastrophic flooding, except what one would expect based upon geologic time. <br />Further, any instability determined either up or downstream of the property <br />entails diverse influences historically precedent to and beyond the control of the <br />present landowner. <br />Adjacent uses have and are altering stream side elevations making any <br />mathematical models of stream behavior transitory at best. Looking at the <br />adjacent lands, diverse activities have occurred over the past half century and <br />are on-going so as to make study of the potential impacts of flooding on the <br />property mythical at best. A summary of adjacent activities from past to current <br />includes: <br />Varra Companies, Inc. correspondence of 23 February 2011 to the Colorado Office of Mined Land Reclamation 8 <br />(OMLR) in reply to OMLR correspondence of 4 October 2010 - Western Sugar Reclamation Land <br />Development Project - M-2010-049.