2013-05-29_REVISION - C1982057 - Laserfiche WebLink

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PUBLIC NOTICE Seneca Coal Company LLC (SCC), 37796 Routt County Road 53, P.O. Box 670, Hayden, Colorado 81639, is requesting partial release of Phase II bond liability (SL -5) on 859.5 acres of the 1,290.2 disturbed acres within the permit boundary at the Seneca 11-W Mine ( CDRMS Permit No. C -82 -057, approved December 31, 1985). Pursuant to Rule 3.03.1, a permittee may request Phase II bond release upon establishment of vegetation which supports the approved postmining land use and meets the approved success standard for cover in accordance with the approved reclamation plan. Only those areas where Phase I has been released are eligible for Phase II release. This Phase II bond release application includes only areas where Phase I bond has been previously released. The CDRMS completed a review and evaluation of the initial SL -2 Phase I bond release application in May 2010 and approved release of 721.9 acres (actual survey 739. ]acres). In March 2011, the CDRMS completed a review and evaluation of the SL -3 Phase I bond release application and approved release of another 412.35 acres. SCC submitted SL -4 Phase I bond release application in November 2012 that includes 138.7 acres. It is anticipated that review, inspection, and release will be conducted in the summer of 2013. SL -5 application (859.5 acres) does not include any acreage requested in SL -4. The Division's current calculated reclamation liability is $6,255,552.61. Seneca Coal Company has posted a self -bond (SB -004) with the CDRMS in that amount. SCC is requesting release of $3,280,502. This requested release area includes 859.5 acres topsoiled and seeded between 1990 and 2005 and select permanent roads. Topsoil was replaced according to approved depths. Vegetation sampling was conducted in 2012 to measure cover and diversity of the revegetated areas. The mean allowable all -hit herbaceous vegetation cover sampled in 2012 for the bond release area was 24.8 percent, which exceeds the 23.4 percent required cover standard; thus demonstrating successful revegetation with respect to the cover standard. Species Diversity and Composition met the following criteria: • Mandatory Test A, no single species comprise greater than 60% relative cover in the bond release area. Test results show that the most abundant single species, western wheatgrass, was 14.99% relative first -hit cover, well below the 60% threshold of concern. Hence Mandatory Test A passed. • Alternative Test B, the Total Species Density test. Mean total species density in the bond release area = 26.46 species per 100 sq. m. Since the bond release area value was greater than the standard of 19.16, Alternative Test B passed. • Alternative Test C, the similarity index between the lifeform species density values for the prescribed lifeforms for the bond release area and the Mean Species density (Area- weighted) in the 5 reference areas is 74 %, exceeding 90% of the standard of 63 %. Hence Alternative Test C passed. • Alternative Test D, the total number of native species encountered in the first twenty - five samples of the bond release area that constituted an adequate cover sample was