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Environmental Scientists and Engineers. LLC <br />1 INTRODUCTION <br />Environmental Assessment for <br />Lease -by- Application <br />Collom Lease Tract <br />COC -68590 <br />1.1 Background <br />ColoWyo Coal Company (ColoWyo) operates a large surface coal mine on Federal Coal <br />Lease C- 0123475 in Moffat County, northwestern Colorado. ColoWyo submitted an <br />Application for Federal Coal Lease COC- 68590, an adjacent coal property known as the <br />Collom Tract, to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Lakewood, Colorado, in <br />October 2004. The Collom Tract is adjacent to and south and west of the current <br />ColoWyo operations (Figure 1, General Location [showing Craig and Meeker], and <br />Figure 2, Collom and ColoWyo Lease Areas over Air Photo). This application was <br />submitted under the provisions of subpart 43 CFR 3425, Leasing on Application. <br />Coal has been mined on a commercial scale for nearly 100 years in Moffat County, <br />primarily by underground mining methods. By the 1960s, underground mining in Moffat <br />County had ceased, but it was soon replaced by large surface mines fueling coal -fired <br />power plants in Moffat County and elsewhere in Colorado. Presently, nearby coal <br />mining operations include Trapper Mining Company, Seneca Coal Company (Peabody <br />Coal Co.), and the underground mine in the Twenty Mile Park area operated by Twenty <br />Mile Coal Company (Peabody Coal Co.). In 2004, the coal industry in Colorado <br />produced a record high of almost 40 million tons, at an average value of nearly $20 per <br />ton (Colorado Geologic Survey 2005). <br />The proposed coal lease would be mined using surface mining methods in conjunction <br />with the existing ColoWyo Mine operations for several years before it would eventually <br />replace all production from ColoWyo's West Pit (upon exhaustion of the West Pit's <br />surface mineable coal). ColoWyo is currently drilling the Collom Tract to confirm and <br />update reserve estimates based on historical data from BLM, U. S. Geological Survey <br />(USGS), and previous private exploration programs. <br />This Environmental Assessment (EA) was prepared to identify and assess the <br />environmental impacts expected from leasing federally controlled coal. Development of <br />the surface coal mine is considered a reasonable future action and potential <br />environmental impacts of this development are described in this document. This EA is <br />incorporated, by reference, into the coal lease application submitted to BLM in March <br />2005 by ColoWyo, 5731 State Highway 13, Meeker, Colorado 81641, as amended. <br />P' PA rival` -RI '.l -, -EA Con, nl +u> d��i <br />