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Peabod <br />June 13, 2012 <br />III ENERGY <br />Peabody Sage Creek Mining, LLC <br />Mr. Jason Musick <br />Colorado Division of Reclamation Mining & Safety (DRMS) <br />1313 Sherman Street, Room 215 <br />Denver CO 80203 <br />Re: Peabody Sage Creek Mine (Permit No. C- 2009 -087) <br />Technical Revision (TR -031 Sagebrush Reference Area <br />Mr. Musick: <br />Peabody Sage Creek Mine <br />PO Box 250 <br />36600 Routt County Road 27 <br />Hayden, CO. 81639 <br />geGO <br />B ?QV <br />c c \ama <br />�}�v%s■u,�'» d gafet`l <br />M,n\n9 an <br />The Seneca II Mine and Peabody Sage Creek Mine (PSCM) sagebrush reference area was <br />established approximately 31 years ago. It has been monitored continuously as a part of the <br />historical revegetation monitoring program at the Seneca II Mine, and more recently for <br />revegetation success demonstrations associated with bond release applications at the Seneca II <br />Mine and PSCM. The sagebrush reference area provides cover and production data used in <br />combination with data from the mountain brush reference area in determining a weighted <br />average success standard. <br />As a result of the infrastructure development for the PSCM, an overland conveyor is planned for <br />effectively transporting coal from PSCM to the processing and load -out operations at the <br />Twentymile Coal Company Facility. The most feasible route for the conveyor and ancillary <br />roads will traverse the western portion of the sagebrush reference area. The current areal extent <br />of the sagebrush reference area is approximately 8 acres. The eastern portion of the existing <br />reference area after establishment of the conveyor corridor is approximately 4 acres, and this will <br />remain as the minimal areal extent of the sagebrush reference area. Any remaining undisturbed <br />portion of the original reference area in addition to this area may be used to facilitate sampling <br />distribution and effort. Likewise, until the conveyor disturbance occurs, the entire original <br />sagebrush reference area will be utilized for sampling. <br />Since any remaining portions of the sagebrush reference area are located on the same slope and <br />aspect and has similar soils as the original reference area, it is assumed that the remaining <br />portions would be representative of the original 8 acre reference area. To verify this and further <br />support the appropriateness of using the approximately minimal area remaining as the sagebrush <br />reference area, t -tests comparing cover and production sample data from the 8 acre original <br />reference area to sample data from the to the subset data for the remaining area were conducted. <br />The data sets examined were from sampling conducted from 1997 through 2011 (note: sampling <br />