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=W�1 <br />Environmental Scientists and Engineers. LEE <br />2 PROPOSED ACTION AND ALTERNATIVES <br />2.1 Proposed Action <br />The Proposed Action is approval and issuance of a Federal Coal Lease COC -68590 on <br />lands administered by the BLM. The coal lease application covers approximately <br />1,406.71 acres of federal lands as shown on Figure 2. The legal descriptions of the lands <br />covered by the coal lease application are provided in Section 2.7. <br />Leasing would provide both surface access necessary for mining and related activities <br />and the right to extract economically recoverable coal reserves, provided that the terms of <br />the proposed lease agreement are met and an approved mining and reclamation permit is <br />obtained from the CCDMG and an approved MLA mining plan is obtained from the <br />Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior - Land and Minerals Management. <br />2.1.1 The Coal Reserve Base <br />The coal reserve base for the prospective open -pit coal mine includes the proposed lease <br />area and existing lands leased from the BLM under Federal Lease (C- 0123475) and one <br />Colorado State Lease (257 -13s). ColoWyo plans to develop the proposed lease with the <br />existing lease in a new open pit mining operation. ColoWyo estimates that the proposed <br />Collom tract contains approximately 130 million tons of in -place coal from the X, B, C, <br />D, E, F, and G seams. This tract, when added to the adjacent federal tract, will create a <br />logical mining unit with a total in -place coal resource of approximately 300 million tons. <br />The reserve is expected to be mined using dragline and/or truck/shovel/loader mining <br />methods as well as with available highwall mining technology where applicable. Current <br />plans are to mine the majority of the coal from the existing federal lease (C- 0123475) <br />initially, with mining progressing to the south to mine the Collom tract — mine plans will <br />be better defined once ongoing exploration drilling is completed. <br />2.1.2 Current Activity <br />ColoWyo is currently drilling the Collom Tract (Exploration License #COC 67664) to <br />develop subsurface information for use in resource evaluation and for geotechnical and <br />hydrologic data required for mine planning. Mine plan alternatives and reserve analyses <br />will be refined as these data become available. <br />2.2 No Action Alternative <br />Under the No Action Alternative, the lease would not be issued, and the existing mining <br />operation would be phased out by the end of the decade. The proposed lease area and <br />coal and biological resources would remain in their current condition. The No Action <br />decision for this lease application would delay the federal government receipt of lease <br />acquisition bonus funds and subsequent production royalties, until such time as a later <br />P .P ROIPCTS Cclow.o.l.l KK EA Pular BEAI-. -PA Collom 08 ■l nn J.¢ <br />