GENERAL32650

• Permit No: M1977285
• IBM Index Class Name: General Documents
• Doc Date: 8/9/2002
• Doc Name: Description and Mapping of Affected Areas toward Abatement of Outstanding Problems
• From: DMG
• To: International Uranium ‎(USA)‎ Corp.
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

STATE OF COLORADO
DIVISION OF MINERALS AND GEOLOGY
Department of Natural Resources
1313 Sherman St., Room 215
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
fAX: [phone]
August 5, 2002
Terry V. Wetz
International Uranium (USA) Corp.
Independence Plaza, Suite 950
1050 Seventeenth Street

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DIVISION OF
MINERALS
GEOLOGY
RECLAMATION
MINING•SAFETY
Bill Owens
Governor
Greg E. Walther
Executive Director
Ronald W. Cattany
Acing Division Director
Denver, CO 80265
Re: Sunday MM~e, Permit M-1977-285, Description and Mapping of Affected Areas toward
Abatement of Outstanding Problem.
Dear Mr. Wetz,
This letter is in response to the items you asked about in your lengthy July 16, 2002 e-mail
message to me regarding the identification, characterization, and mapping of the affected areas
and specific features associated with this mine and the other four in the Sunday Mines group. As
we had discussed, though I was able to fairly promptly respond to the questions pertaining to the
other four permits in the group, the list of questions for this permit was long and required more
research. Hopefully, this reply will provide you with the elements and their basis to be able to
formulate your response materials.
I am sorry I was out of the office when you visited here in June, and that we were not able to
discuss these issues face-to-face at that time. You mentioned that you pemsed our files hoping to
glean information to be used in your written response and mapping project. I had assumed that
you viewed the microfiche as well as the hard copies of the file documents, for they contain much
of the available history of the permitted site, but it appears that you might not have done so. This
may account for some of the questions in your message.
Some general questions that seem to be raised repeatedly in your query are: Were these issues,
which are presently considered problems, considered problems in the past? If so, why were they
not handled previously with past operators? And if not, why are they considered problems now?
Why is IUSA being burdened with correcting the mistakes of the past? There are answers to
these questions, and I will try to address them all below.
First off, let me explain that though some of the map standards and requirements have changed
(made clearer rather than more stringent) adequate maps have always been requirements of a
permit application, permit amendment and, whenever appropriate, an annual report. This permit
approval included a notably unusual condition, e.g., approval for facilities or structures to be
constructed at locations that had not yet been specified. However, there seem to be cases of the
development and use of several of these types of sites (mainly remote vent hole sites and their
access roads) during the past 25 years whose existence was not communicated to this office. That
is the type of thing which usually grows into a problem to be corrected.