_GENERAL DOCUMENTS - C1981017 (139)

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N'°OF lyF OAP• A United States Department of the Interior N O 7 � _ OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING �ggCH 3 �$°9 Reclamation and Enforcement Washington.D.C. 20240 AUG 29 1994 AUG 3 I : Mr. Steven G. Renner Coal Program Supervisor Division of Minerals and Geology Department of Natural Resources 1313 Sherman Street, Room 215 Denver, Colorado 80203 Dear Mr. Renner: Thank you for your letter of May 2 requesting informal review of the Albuquerque Field Office (AFO) Director's determination of April 21 that the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) did not take appropriate action with respect to violations 2 and 3 of ten-day notice (TDN) number 93-020-352-006, (Mid-Continent Resources, Inc. (MCR), permit number C- 81-017). With respect to violation 2, the AFO Director, based upon information presented in your request for review, has withdrawn his April 21 determination that DNR's actions on this violation were inappropriate. Thus, there is no longer any need to proceed with the requested review on this issue. Violation 3 of the TDN alleged that MCR had failed to reclaim permit C-81-017 in a contemporaneous manner. The AFO found DNR's initial response to this violation to be inappropriate. As a result of this inappropriate finding DNR issued Notice of Violation (NOV) C-93-109. The abatement date of October 21, 1993, was not met and a Failure-to- abate Cessation Order (FTACO) was issued. The reclamation of the mine site has not been completed and the FTACO, and apparently the NOV, have been vacated. In your request for review, you provided the following explanations. First, in order to abate the violation, MCR must perform reclamation of the mine site in accordance with the Board ordered reclamation schedule dated May 22, 1991. Second, DNR is currently pursuing alternative enforcement actions, as allowed for at Colorado statute 34-33-123(12), in the form of a personal liability suit against the owners and controllers of the permittee for their failure to comply with another action of DNR. Third, if DNR is successful in its alternative enforcement case and reclamation is achieved, alleged violation 3 of TDN 93-002-352-006 will be abated. Fourth, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement's (OSM) Directive INE-35 supports the position that an appropriate response to a TDN may include other actions specifically approved in the State program in lieu of enforcement action to cause the violation to be corrected.