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in the East Salt Creek Valley adjacent to the permit area. Livestock grazing is generally confined <br />to the lower lying canyon bottom lands. The steep canyon sideslopes and rugged uplands are <br />primarily used by wildlife. Both mule deer and elk utilize habitat within and adjacent to the permit <br />area in various seasons, and are the most common large mammals. Black bear and mountain lion <br />also occur in the area, along with numerous smaller mammals, songbirds, raptors, mourning doves <br />and chukar partridge. <br />McClane Canyon is located in the Book Cliffs area just north of the Grand Valley. This area is <br />northeast of the Garmesa Anticline and on the southern flank of the Piceance Basin. Local strata <br />strike north-northwest and dip to the northeast into the Piceance Basin at between 2 and 3 degrees. <br />The surface geology of the permit area is made up of the Mesa Verde Group of Upper Cretaceous <br />Age, the Wasatch Formation of Lower Tertiary Age, and alluvium and colluvium of Quaternary <br />Age. All local coal seams are in the Mount Garfield Formation of the Mesa Verde Group. The <br />Mount Garfield Formation consists of fine grained to medium grained sandstones, gray shales, and <br />coal bearing zones. The Sego Sandstone underlies the Mount Garfield Formation. Overlying the <br />Mount Garfield Formation is the Hunter Formation which contains massive cliff-forming <br />sandstones that outcrop along the canyon walls of East Salt Creek. The Mount Garfield Formation <br />contains four coal zones; the Loma, Carbonera, Cameo, and Palisade zones. The Cameo seam is <br />mined at the McClane Canyon Mine. <br />The occurrence of ground water within and adjacent to the McClane Canyon Mine permit area is <br />controlled primarily by the combination of local topography, stratigraphy and geologic structure. <br />Drilling has indicated that the Cameo seam becomes increasingly saturated downdip (northeast) <br />from its outcrop along the side slopes of the East Salt Creek drainage basin. This is depicted on <br />Figure 4.2-3 of Volume II of the permit application. As can be seen on the figure, the saturated <br />zone extends downdip towards the northeast along a northwest-southeast trending line. The <br />outcrop line of the coal as well as the East Salt Creek drainage, run roughly north-south in the <br />vicinity of the permit area. Recharge to the Cameo coal seam occurs in an area where the coal <br />seam subcrops in the East Salt Creek alluvium approximately two miles north of the McClane <br />Canyon Mine permit area. The subcrop of the coal seam along East Salt Creek was created as the <br />stream gradually cut through the sedimentary strata to the point where the stream channel <br />intersected the Cameo coal seam. The underground workings of the McClane Canyon Mine <br />extend roughly eastward into the Cameo seam from a point where the coal seam outcrops in <br />McClane Canyon. McClane Canyon is a small tributary canyon to the East Salt Creek drainage. <br />In addition to the saturated portions of the Cameo seam, some local lenticular strata of limited <br />extent situated above the Cameo seam have been found to contain ground water perched within the <br />strata. Saturation of the Cameo seam occurs at about 5580 ft. elevation. <br />East Salt Creek is an intermittent stream tributary to the Colorado River. The East Salt Creek <br />Valley has been designated as an alluvial valley floor (AVF), with both undeveloped rangeland and <br />irrigated hayland mapped on the AVF in the vicinity of the mine. Existing and proposed surface <br />disturbances associated with the mine are located in the McClane Canyon drainage basin upstream <br />from the AVF boundary, with the exception of office trailer facilities and the lower portion of the <br />access road, which are situated within the boundaries of the AVF. <br />7