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bond release application later this year, and Western Fuels proposes to use a reference area as the <br />standard, then a technical revision or permit revision must be approved beforehand". Again, the timing <br />of the approval of the reference area was important, not the timing of the vegetation studies. This e-mail <br />is included in Exhibit G. <br />11. In August of 2008, Greg Lewicki and Ross Gubka realized that the Permit Revision 06 process <br />would take a long time due to controversial issues with the prime farmlands on the Morgan property, so <br />it was decided to submit a revision to only address the change from the IP standard to the reference <br />area. This was discussed with DRMS and was desired so that bond releases on the eastern portion of the <br />property could proceed without getting bogged down in PR-06. This was submitted as TR-58 and was <br />approved on May 9, 2009. In the permit pages, no mention was made of the timing of when vegetation <br />studies could be done. The Adequacy Letter of April 7, 2009 states that the application was well <br />organized and addressed the major issues of concern. This letter, included as Exhibit H, makes no <br />mention of the timing of vegetation studies. <br />12. Letters were sent to all landowners involved with TR-58 soliciting comments. No comments were <br />received except a letter was signed by Jo Ellen Turner, Mike and Frank Morgan, on October 2, 2008 <br />stating that they had no problem with the change to the irrigated pasture reference area. They further <br />stated that "We do understand what the purpose of this is and what Western Fuels is trying to do here". <br />This letter is included in Exhibit I. There were other concerns expressed in the letter but these had to do <br />with cropland on their property. I do not believe that the landowners or anyone else have any concern <br />that the vegetation studies for SL-12 were done prior to approval of the reference area in TR-58. <br />Conclusion <br />In summary: <br />a) DRMS and NRCS agreed that the previous standard was unacceptable, <br />b) OSM wanted reference areas, not numeric standards, <br />c) WFC agreed to this and submitted the revision to make the change to a reference area, <br />d) there is no regulatory basis to state that the vegetation studies done on IP lands prior to the approval <br />of the reference area in TR-58 are unacceptable, <br />e) The cost of irrigating land and performing vegetation studies is substantial and WFC cannot be <br />expected to irrigate land beyond the 10 year bond period if they have satisfied all the technical <br />requirements. They also cannot be expected to incur the costs of additional vegetation studies since the <br />existing ones are not deficient in any way <br />f) The documents and e-mails show that DRMS knew that the 2007 and 2008 studies were being done <br />for later bond release and never objected to it and <br />g) the landowners were fine with the change, including the Morgans. <br />In fact, in the Compliance section of the June 2007 DRMS inspection report, it states that the IP <br />reclaimed areas were inspected and no mention of compliance issues were raised with the timing of the <br />study. This is only one more example of the numerous points throughout this process that DRMS, being <br />fully aware of the study of reclaimed and reference areas for the purpose of comparison, did not raise <br />any concerns of the validity of the vegetation studies in regards to timing. <br />DRMS has expressed concern that the timing of the vegetation studies and bond release with respect to <br />