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Ms. JoEllen Turner <br />Box 346 <br />Nucla, Colorado 81424 <br />Dear Ms. Turner: <br />United States Department of the Interior <br />OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING <br />Reclamation and Enforcement <br />Western Region Office <br />1999 Broadway, Suite 3320 <br />Denver, CO 80202 -3050 <br />MAR 2 2 2011 <br />We received your telefaxed complaints dated March 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14, 2011. After <br />reviewing your submittals, we have concluded that several of your concerns pertain to Permit <br />Revision 6 (PR -06). We are currently conducting a detailed review of PR -06 and will address <br />these concerns as part of our review. Several of your concerns raise potential issues with <br />historical permitting errors and potential breakdowns in Division of Reclamation Mining and <br />Safety (DRMS) policies, procedures and implementation of its coal regulatory program. We are <br />currently evaluating these concerns and determining the appropriate course of action to take. In <br />addition, you have identified new potential violations of the State's regulatory program, not <br />directly related to PR -06. These potential violations will be transmitted to DRMS through a ten <br />day notice (TDN). <br />Several of your concerns are related to PR -06. We are currently evaluating PR -06 and believe <br />we would be most effective in addressing your concerns by incorporating them into this review. <br />The concerns you have expressed include: the requirements of the May 18, 2010 order by the <br />Administrator (David Berry, Director, Office of Mined Land Reclamation) were not fulfilled <br />through PR -06; the planting / irrigation / soil salvage / reclamation plans are inadequate; Morgan <br />property soils were placed on Benson property; Bench 1 material is not suitable subsoil <br />substitute; and Western Fuels — Colorado (WFC) rewrote the original prime farmland <br />investigation to say what they wanted it to say. These specific concerns are being incorporated <br />into and addressed through our review of PR -06. <br />Several of your objections raise concerns with historical permitting errors and DRMS' policies, <br />procedures and implementation of its coal regulatory program. We are currently evaluating these <br />concerns and determining the appropriate course of action to take. These concerns include: <br />DRMS employing they wrong type of permit revision to make changes to your property without <br />adequate notification or opportunity to comment; improper landowner notification and <br />coordination for several permitting activities; a series of errors leading to the inaccurate negative <br />determination of prime farmland; problems with the Board hearing process; the prime farmland <br />determination used NRCS documentation for the Nucla East mine which was not relevant to <br />your property and should not have been applied; attempts had been made to improperly designate <br />all or portions of your property as dryland and / or potential cropland; the land use <br />characterization of your property was inaccurate ( "hayland" and "pastureland" cannot be used <br />interchangeably); and pre - mining irrigation info was inaccurate. <br />In addition to determining the appropriate course of action to take on potential breakdowns in the <br />DRMS' implementation of its program, we are reviewing PR -06 with the knowledge that the <br />