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with dozers, shovels and loaders loading trucks which take the material to designated stockpiles <br />or to the regraded area behind the pit for reclamation. A haul road around the pit is used for this <br />operation. Soft upper overburden may be removed by shovels and trucks and taken to the back of <br />the pit for backfilling using the same loop road. This road moves exactly as the pit moves. <br />Lower overburden is usually blasted and loaded with a shovel and placed behind the pit for <br />backfilling. At the back of the pit, large dozers re -grade the spoil overburden from the shovels <br />and the trucks to the approximate original contour. The exposed coal is loaded with a rubber <br />tired front end loader into over the highway haul trucks which take the coal to the nearby power <br />plant in Nucla operated by Tri- State. The anticipated mining schedule for each area where <br />mining will occur is graphically shown on Map 2.05.2 -1. Dates for actual mine progress and <br />termination are based on many variables and the progress shown on Map 2.05.2 -1 is only <br />approximate. A cross section of the typical pit is shown on Map 2.05.3 -1. <br />Mining will begin along the northern boundary of the currently reclaimed New Horizon 1 Mine <br />area and a panel mining method will be used to develop the pits (see Map 2.05.2 -1). The panels <br />(cuts) will vary in length and width according to conditions. Panel lengths will approach 2200 <br />feet and the panel width will vary from 100 to 120 feet. A bottom pit width of 120 feet is the <br />maximum that will be employed. The exposed coal portion of the bottom of the pit is generally <br />120 feet wide. Since this operation uses the graded spoil as a base for the overburden truck <br />traffic, no ungraded spoils will remain behind the pit or the trucks could not reach the edge of the <br />pit. The overburden spoil is placed at angle of repose in the backfill, at an approximate angle of <br />35.2 degrees. The cut slopes for the overburden removal range from 0.3H:1 V in the upper <br />portion to near vertical in the competent lower portions. <br />Mining will generally progress south to north with the long axis of the pits generally east to west. <br />The overburden will be placed or pushed into an adjacent or nearby mined out pit panel except <br />for the initial cut where topsoil and overburden will be placed adjacent to the pit onto land <br />designated as Topsoil Stockpile and Overburden Stockpile. These stockpiles are shown in the <br />Section 2.05.3 Page 2 November 2011 <br />