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Colowyo Coal Company <br />5731 State Highway 13 <br />Meeker, CO 81641 <br />T: 970-824-1500 <br />November 3, 2011 <br />Dear Ms. Brown: <br />Ms. Sandra Brown <br />Senior Environmental Protection Spec: list <br />Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mini/ g and Safety <br />Department of Natural Resources <br />1313 Sherman Street, Room 215 <br />Denver, CO 80203 <br />RE: Colowyo Coal Company, L.P., Nomination for a 2011 Coal Mining Reclamation Award <br />Please accept this entry from Colowyo Coal Company, L.P. (Colowyo) as a nomination for a <br />2011 Coal Mining Reclamation Award which honors outstanding reclamation of coal mines and <br />seeks to further the collection and dissemination of information about successful reclamation <br />techniques. <br />Colowyo once again demonstrated its commitment toward contemporaneous reclamation in <br />2011 by reclaiming approximately 241 acres mine wide; of which 157 acres were reclaimed <br />within the West Pit, 35 acres were reclaimed in the East Pit, and 49 acres were reclaimed in the <br />South Taylor Pit respectively. Similar to 2010 West Pit Reclamation efforts, Colowyo utilized its <br />second largest dragline, a Bucyrus -Erie 1300W with a 43 cubic yard bucket and a 260 foot swing <br />radius, to perform all of the major spoil movement in the 2011 West Pit Reclamation area. This <br />included construction of 667 feet of rock ditch; which will allow this watershed to report storm <br />water and snow runoff to the East Taylor Pond. This rock ditch was required by State <br />regulations to be rock -lined which meant that a total rip -rap volume of nearly 1903 cubic yards <br />of rock was hauled by truck to the upper reaches of this ditch. Once proper rock placement was <br />achieved the rock was broken to the proper size by a rock breaker and distributed throughout <br />the ditches using a trackhoe to form the ditch slopes and bottoms. <br />The initial box cut of the East Pit was commenced in 1976, and the area reclaimed in 2011 in the <br />East Pit marked the first section of the final highwall being regraded to approved Post Mine <br />Topography. The 2011 reclamation efforts in the East Pit marked an end to almost 30 year of <br />mining in the East Pit and the first step in final closure of the pit. 2011 East Pit regrade efforts <br />were completed by primarily using dozers, a blast on the highwall, front -end loader, haul trucks, <br />trackhoe and a rock hammer. In addition to the approximately 35 acres of regrade work <br />completed in the East Pit, Colowyo designed and constructed a 2 acre -foot capacity sediment <br />