ENFORCE23185

• Permit No: C1981022
• IBM Index Class Name: Enforcement
• Doc Date: 10/11/1994
• Doc Name: MEMO
• From: DMG
• To: DAVID A BERRY
• Violation No.: TD1994020370002TV1
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

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• • III IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
STATE OF COLORADO
DIVISION OF MINERALS AND GEOLOGY
Deparimenl of Nafu ral Resources
I31 J Sherman St., Room 21 S
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone. [phone]
FAIT (7031 8 3 2-81 06
October 11, 1994
TO: David A. Berry
FROM: Tony Waldron ; ~,~)
MEMO
RE: Somerset Mining Company, Our File No
X-94-020-370-002-TV-1
Urb~
DEPARTMENT OF
NATURAL
RESOURCES
Roy Roma
Governn~
fames 5. Loc hhcad
E+ecu~ivc Dueaw
Michael P Lrn~R
D iv~sion Ducnw
C-81-022, Ten-Day Notice
The Division received Ten-Day Notice X-94-020-370-002-TV-1 from the
Office of Surface Mining, Albuquerque Field Office (OSM-AFO) on
October 3, 1994. The TDN was issued for "failure to reclaim the
mine site to approximate original contour and failure to properly
address the requirements for an approximate original contour
variance". Following is a brief summary of the history of this TDN
issuance followed by what I consider to be an appropriate response
addressing the TDN.
On May 11 and 12, 1994, an oversight inspection was conducted at
the Somerset Mine by Mitch Rollings of OSM along with Steve Shuey
of the Division. The inspection report was not issued until July
18, 1994 and had no TDN's attached. The inspector did however
state that there were a couple of unresolved issues concerning the
variance from AOC which had been granted to Somerset Mining
Company.
One of these was that a variance from approximate original contour
had been inappropriately granted for the Bear Creek substation and
portal area. The reasoning behind this was that Colorado
regulations allow AOC waivers for certain land uses including:
Industrial, commercial, agricultural, residential, or PUBLIC USE
per rule 2.06.5(2)(a). The approved post-mining land use for this
area is undeveloped land per rule 1.04(71)(j). Therefore,
according to OSM, DMG cannot grant a variance for this area.
However, public use is not defined as a land use per rule 1.04(71)
so the operator could not state that public use is the post-mining
land use and chose undeveloped land instead. There is clearly an
inconsistency in our rules with respect to land uses in the
definition and in rule 2.06.5(2)(a). The second problem was that
the owner of the property (BLM) had not knowingly requested in
writing that a variance be granted.
Both of these concerns have already been addressed via minor
revision 25 which was approved on July 17, 1994 and minor revision
29 which was approved on September 23, 1994. MR-25 provided a