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• annual temperature for the area is 54 degrees with recorded extremes of <br />-20° to 100oF. There is no recorded wind data available for the immediate <br />area. The closest active reporting station with wind data records is <br />located at the Pueblo Municipal Airport approximately 30 miles east of the <br />mine area. Prevailing wind direction over most of the year is from the <br />west, except during the summer months when prevailing winds originate from <br />the southeast. Average annual wind velocity is less than ten (]0) miles <br />per hour with occasional gusts up to 60 miles per hour. <br />The surface drainage basin is covered by extensive surficial deposits of <br />poorly to moderately consolidated colluvial/alluvial materials. Much of <br />the limited precipitation received either infiltrates into these <br />relatively porous surficial deposits or is lost through evaporation and <br />transpiration. These factors significantly limit runoff and are reflected <br />in the surface hydrologic regime of the entire area. <br />• Generally, there are significant differences in flow velocities and water <br />quality between upper and lower portions of major area drainage. Higher <br />precipitation rates, heavy vegetative cover and relatively steep slopes <br />in upstream headwater areas result in relatively high flow velocities, <br />narrow deeply incised stream channels and low levels of TSS, TDS, and <br />soluble mineral components. <br />Given the geologically recent age of the Wet Mountain uplift, major <br />drainages originating in the mountainous areas are still in transition <br />with downcutting and widening of downgradient channel segments occurring <br />continuously as part of the process of natural stream channel <br />stabilization. Much of the ongoing channel erosion occurs in the <br />transition zone between the steep mountainous areas and the flatter plains <br />areas within the drainage basin. This ongoing erosion results in <br />increased TSS levels from the point where the streams cross the Wet <br />Mountain Fault all the way to the Arkansas River. Contributing to the <br />increase in TSS levels in the lower reaches is the change in lithology as <br />drainages cross the fault zone from the granodioritic Wet Mountain uplift <br />complex to the more erodible sedimentary beds of the synclinal basin. <br />2.04.7-21 <br />