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Impacts to wildlife are minimized by prohibiting public use of trails when big game are <br />concentrated in the winter (December 1 to April 16), and by prohibiting the cutting of snags <br />except those within the actual disturbed area required for construction, thereby minimizing the <br />loss of perches and nesting trees for raptors, insectivorous birds, and cavity nesters. Power lines <br />and other transmission facilities are designed and constructed to protect raptors and other large <br />birds from electrocution. Construction activities (heavy equipment, helicopters, blasting etc.) are <br />prohibited within one - quarter mile of any golden eagle nest during the nesting period (March 1 <br />to July 1). <br />The construction of the west portal facilities disturbed a short stretch of East Roatcap Creels. <br />Carefully designed sediment control measures were used to protect the stream channel. The <br />operator has agreed to compensate for any impacts to riparian areas by improving adjacent areas. <br />In contacting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) three endangered fish species were <br />noted as potentially being impacted indirectly by the operation: <br />Federallv Listed Species <br />Colorado squawfish Ptychocheilus lucius <br />Humpback chub Gila cypha <br />Bonytail chub Gila elegans <br />While the proposed activity is not directly located in areas currently occupied by any of the <br />above fishes, the USFWS believes that any depletion of water from the Upper Colorado River <br />Basin (UCRB) may have negative impacts on these endangered fishes. Simply put, water that <br />leaves the UCRB before reaching habitat areas for listed fishes may actually cause cumulative <br />deterioration of downstream, occupied habitat. In this way depletions are thought to contribute <br />to the fishes' decline. <br />The operator submitted a report of the potential for depletions to the UCRB as part of the <br />Orchard Valley (Bowie No. 1) West Mine permit revision request. The Division agreed with <br />those findings. The operator predicted that 26.7 acre feet of water could be depleted by the <br />operation. The Office of Surface Mining relayed this information to the USFWS. This impact is <br />minimal but was be mitigated by the operator through financial compensation to a FWS fund set <br />up for the endangered species. Both OSM and FWS are satisfied with this arrangement, which is <br />in use for other Federal projects impacting the UCRB. Stipulation No. 42, attached to the 1993 <br />Permit Renewal No. 2 document, required the applicant to submit water depletion information <br />for the purpose of calculating the financial compensation amount. This stipulation was complied <br />with through Minor Revision No. 93. <br />In Technical Revision No. 32, a second water depletion estimate was made concerning a <br />proposed increase in the production rate from 1 million to 5 million tons per year at the Bowie <br />No. 1 unit train loadout. The water depletion estimate that was calculated by BRL amounted to <br />155.6 acre -feet. This information was forwarded to the U.S.D.A.- Forest Service for review, <br />through OSM. BRL made a onetime payment to the Forest Service to mitigate the effects of the <br />estimated water depletion. <br />On the basis of available information, this Division finds that the proposed operation will not <br />affect the continued existence of threatened or endangered species or result in the destruction or <br />adverse modification of their critical habitats (2.07.6(2)(n)). <br />Page 33 of 42 <br />