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agencies. The public notice announcing the completeness of the permit renewal application was <br />published in the Delta County Independent for four consecutive weeks beginning March 26 and <br />ending April 16, 2008. No comments were received by the Division concerning the renewal. <br />The Applicant Violator System (AVS) was queried for any non - compliance issues relating to <br />OMLLC. On December 16, 2008, the AVS gave an "issue" recommendation. <br />On July 28, 2011, OMLLC submitted an application for Permit Revision 6 (PR -6), which was <br />deemed complete on August 8, 2011. A preliminary adequacy letter was sent to OMLLC on <br />October 7, 2011. When PR -6 was submitted, both Federal Coal Lease Modification COC -61357 <br />Tract 5 (FCLM) and Elk Creek East Federal coal lease COC -70615 (ECEL) were proposed in <br />the revision application, although Oxbow did not have right of entry for either lease area. <br />The application contains National Forest System (NF S) surface lands managed by the U.S. <br />Forest Service, Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests. The coal <br />estate is administered by the BLM Uncompahgre Field Office (UFO). The lease modification <br />application was made to prevent bypass of federal coal reserves and to revise the mine plan to a <br />layout previously approved by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. The GMUG <br />prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) of the lease modification, Tract 5 (USFS EA 2011) <br />pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act to analyze surface impacts related to the coal <br />lease modification and came to a finding of No Significant Impact. On August 3, 2011, the <br />GMUG prepared a Decision Record providing consent to the BLM to lease the coal. <br />The BLM is required by law to consider leasing federally -owned minerals for economic <br />recovery. With respect to lands managed by the USFS, the agency considers consenting to the <br />BLM to lease coal reserves underlying lands under its jurisdiction, and prescribes stipulations for <br />the protection of non - mineral resources. In this case, the GMUG consented to BLM modifying <br />OMLLC's existing coal lease COC -61357 by adding approximately 157.79 acres to it. The <br />GMUG identified needed stipulations from the parent lease (COC- 61357) to protect non -coal <br />resources (See USFS EA 2011 or Colorado Permit C- 1981 -022 Exhibit 2.03 -E1). The only <br />potential surface disturbance from the lease modification area will be subsidence. <br />Wild Earth Guardians filed a Notice of Appeal (NOA) to the USFS decision on September 26, <br />2011. On November 7, 2011, a USFS Appeal Deciding Officer supported the Forest <br />Supervisor's decision and approved the lease modification. OMLLC received the modified lease <br />and right of entry from the BLM on May 7, 2012. <br />OMLLC has not received a right of entry for the Elk Creek East Lease and an issuance date is <br />uncertain. Therefore, OMLLC requested to remove the ECEL from the PR -6 application due to <br />time constraints and the need to start development work in the FCLM area. OMLLC will submit <br />a new permit revision application at a later date to incorporate the ECEL area into the permit. <br />An AVS check was run on June 21, 2012. Two violations, tied to Thomas W. Ganges, Jr <br />outstanding from December 1985 were reported. Both violations are part of the Pittston <br />settlement agreement and therefore do not affect the approval of PR -6. <br />Description of the Environment <br />0 <br />