_GENERAL DOCUMENTS - C1981017 (232)

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4- 2 -93; 9 ::54M;OFFICE OF SURFACE March 24, 1998 Richard Seibel Regional Director Office of Surface Mining 1999 Broadway, Suite 3320 Denver, CO 80202 -5733 Re: CITIZEN COMPLAINT ALLEGING IMPROPER ASSUMPTION BY THE COLORADO DIVISION OF MINERALS AND GEOLOGY OF COSTS OF RECLAIMING MID - CONTINENT RESOURCES' COAL BASIN MINES TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST AND IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW Mr. Seibel: C4LOF4D0 1 303 344 1545 'ti !7 v j The Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (DMG), in its accounting of the reclamation costs of Mid - Continent Resources' ( MCR's) Coal Basin mines, has failed to include the cost to the State of project management and auxiliary expenses, even though project management is integral to reclamation. Considering the initial failure of DMG (and OSM) to require MCR to post an adequate reclamation bond, and considering MCR's bankruptcy and the lack of funds, we recognize that it was prudent and necessary for DMG to defray project management costs provided that every effort is made to hold MCR and its principal officers responsible for repayment. But DMG has given no indication that it will attempt to recoup these sums from MCR's principal owners. DMG has in fact indicated just the opposite by omitting project management costs from its account of reclamation costs which it recently furnished to Pitkin County District Court. MCR is suing DMG. Trial is set for August 7, 1998. In its suit, MCR, while paying its legal fees from bankruptcy funds meant to be paid to creditors, is shamelessly attempting to show that DMG doesn't need all of the $3 million payable to it according to the bankruptcy liquidation plan to complete reclamation. Obviously, DMG is weakening its own defense in court by omitting the project management costs, and such omission may jeopardize any future effort to recover them. Although we believe that DMG's conduct of the actual reclamation work to date has been done economically and diligently, we are dismayed and angered by certain recurrent decisions of DMG's leadership. These decisions at critical junctures have served to release MCR's owners from the responsibility of paying the costs of "fixing what they broke," and have weakened the chances of obtaining sufficient funds to finish the reclamation job as it should be done.