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6 <br />NON CONFI®ENTIAL. <br />PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT <br />Ira <br />1111 H STREET <br />' P.O. BOX 758 <br />coo GREELEY, COLORADO 80632 <br />WEBSITE: www.co.weld.co.us <br />COLORADOPHONE (970) 356-4000, EXT. 3750 <br />FAX: (970) 304-6497 <br />March 20, 2009 <br />Allen Sorenson <br />Division of Reclamation Mining & Safety <br />1313 Sherman St, Room 215 <br />Denver, CO 80203 <br />Re: Powertech Request for Modification of Notice of Intent File_ # P-2008-043 t/ <br />Dear Mr. Sorenson: <br />Weld County Departments of Planning, Public Works, and Health and Environment have reviewed the March <br />4, 2009 Request for Modification of Notice of Intent (NOI) File # P-2008-043 submitted to your office by <br />Powertech (USA), Inc. and have the following comments. <br />The proposed NOI modifications previously approved by the DRMS include installation of additional <br />groundwater monitoring wells to be used for baseline environmental data collection. The County requests <br />that installation of these wells meet all the environmental and aquifer protection requirements of the U.S. <br />Environmental Protection Agency and meets all the requirements of the Colorado Division of Water <br />Resources, Office of the State Engineer. <br />The proposed NOI modifications also described prospecting activities that included drilling of 9 new <br />exploration boreholes previously approved by the DRMS. The County requests that these wells be correctly <br />abandoned following logging and sampling so as to provide complete protection to aquifers in the area and <br />the method of disposal of the cuttings and disturbed soils meets all the environmental and aquifer protection <br />requirements of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and meets all the requirements of the Colorado <br />Division of Water Resources, Office of the State Engineer. <br />An additional modification to the NOI is proposed in the March 4 letter from Powertech that includes a <br />planned aquifer testing program with pump testing of a well to determine aquifer characteristics of the <br />uranium ore zone. Powertech proposes to dispose the pumped water at the land surface into an unlined <br />infiltration pit from which it is presumed some water will evaporate, and some of the produced water will <br />infiltrate to shallower aquifers (the Laramie Formation). Assuming only one test is conducted, the proposed <br />amount of produced water to be disposed is approximately 0.5 Acre-Feet. The specific location of the <br />proposed infiltration pond was not given, however the section-township and range for which it is proposed is <br />bisected by a tributary to Spring Creek an ephemeral stream that extends from Wyoming to near Eaton where <br />it joins Lone Tree Creek, a tributary to the Poudre River. <br />The Powertech proposal identifies elevated concentrations of uranium and radium in the water to be pumped <br />from the uranium ore zone. The proposal also provided a prediction of the mixing of the produced water as it <br />0AUFinal 3 LTR to DRMS REPumpTest3-20-09.doc