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t <br />Dave Berry <br />June 8, 2011 <br />Page 2 of 5 <br />C S M B <br />'4 Y E R 5 <br />Haying Activity ion Land within the New Horizon Mine Permit Area <br />For most of the lands within the Permit Area, WFC itself conducts the haying activities on <br />reclaimed lands using a farming contractor, and simply forwards the proceeds to the landowners. <br />There are only three landowners within the Permit Area who retained the right to hay their fields: <br />Mr. Mel Staats, Mr. Ward Burbridge and Mr. Stan Garvey. A summary of the lands (identified <br />by landowner) where haying is taking place within the Permit Area appears in Appendix A <br />hereto. <br />None of these landowners has expressed any concern to WFC about the timing of revegetation <br />studies as they might impact haying activity on the lands in question. The relevant lease <br />agreements perWning to these lands are attached as Exhibit 1 (Garvey), Exhibit 2 ( Burbridge), <br />and Exhibit 3 (Staats) hereto. <br />The relevant lease provisions in each agreement state generally that WFC has the right to <br />conduct revegetation and the landowner has the right to remove hay, but the agreements are <br />silent with respect to the relative timing or coordination of the two activities. However, as <br />discussed more fully below, there never has been and does not appear currently to be any dispute <br />between WFC and any landowner concerning these matters. <br />Scheduling of Revegetation Studies and Haying within the Permit Area <br />As shown on Appendix A, haying activities on most lands within the Permit Area are conducted <br />by Mel Staats (assisted by his daughter -in -law, Ms. Ricki Staats) either farming his own lands or <br />acting as WFC's farming contractor on lands owned by other parties. In past years, WFC has <br />relied upon information supplied by the Staats family and other farmers in establishing its <br />schedule to conduct revegetation studies on these lands. <br />The same day the citizen complaint was received, on June 2, 2011 WFC employee Ross Gubka <br />contacted Mr. Staats as well as affected landowner Ward Burbridge, to inquire concerning the <br />scheduling of haying activities and revegetation studies. As shown in Appendix A, Mssrs. Staats <br />and Burbridge are either the contractor or the landowner conducting haying activities on all of <br />the relevant lands. Mr. Gubka's memorandum is attached as Exhibit 4 hereto. As stated therein, <br />both of these gentlemen indicated that WFC's conducting revegetation studies on or about June <br />20, 2011 would not pose any problems for their haying operations since neither had any plans to <br />cut hay prior to that date, and Mr. Burbridge initially stated he did not plan to remove hay until <br />July, 2011. Both farmers indicated that weather conditions are causing delays in their haying <br />operations this year. <br />These observations were confirmed by Mr. Garvey on June 8, 2011. WFC had attempted to <br />begin its vegetation study on his lands, only to be informed by Mr. Garvey that he did not <br />consider the fields ready to be cut yet for any purposes, and that they would not be for another 10 <br />;w <br />