The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said in a notice to be published in the June 26 Federal Register that it will take comment on an environmental assessment report for a 1,789-acre coal reserve area in Colorado that Bowie Resources LLC has applied to lease.
The BLM Colorado State Office will hold a July 18 public hearing to receive comments on the EA, Fair Market Value (FMV) and Maximum Economic Recovery (MER) documents covering these coal resources. Written comments will be taken until July 29.
The coal resource to be offered under this October 2012 lease application has limited surface access and is limited to coal recoverable by underground mining methods. The federal coal resources are located in Delta County, next to the Bowie No. 2 longwall mine.
After a production slump late last decade and early this decade due to geology problems, Bowie Resources has partially gotten Bowie No. 2 back up to its old peak production levels of roughly 5 million tons/yr. U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration data shows that the mine produced 937,890 tons in the first quarter of this year and 3.4 million tons in 2012.
