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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1.0 Application) • PRE -APPLICATION REPORT S'T'ORM KING MINE Report Prepared by the Garfield County Board of County Commissioners, Garfield County, Colorado February 6, 1984 • • INTRODUCTION The Pre -Application Report of the Storm King Mines project is prepared pursuant to the requirements of Section 5.08.04.06 of the Garfield County Zoning Resolution. The purpose of the Pre -Application Report is threefold. The report includes: 1. A summary of comments received concerning the project. 2. A description of the scope, approach and schedule for the preparation of the Fiscal Impact Analysis. 3. A discussion of any exemption from the provisions of the Garfield County Fiscal Impact Analysis and Fiscal Mitigation Program procedures. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The project site is located on both private and Federal (leased) land on and along the Grand Hogback (Coal Ridge) near New Castle. Surface facililites are located primarily on hilly and benched lands above the Colorado River on the north side of the Grand Hogback, yet well above the floodplain of the Colorado River. The City of Glenwood Springs lies six air miles due east. The area is largely rural in character and consists primarily of undeveloped land. The major land use of the site is for grazing. Access to the project site is primarily via County Road No. 335 east from the New Castle interchange with I-70. Rail access will be from the east via the existing Colorado Midland railroad grade. Secondary access to the project site will be via South Canyon which will be used only to access a ventilation and escape shaft at a remote point on Horse Mountain. Another ventilation shaft may be developed at the very west end of the project site near the New Castle/I-70 interchange. Surface facilities include water handling and clarification equipment, a rail loadout, railroad spur, offices, change house, shops, water and sewage treatment facilities, electrical distribution facilities, refuse disposal and water impoundment. The rail loadout will consist of a gravity loading structure, serviced by a covered conveyor, transporting coal from the clean coal slot storage facility. The slot storage facility is ari enclosed building. • . A dual purpose access -haul road will be used for the transportation of coarse refuse. The road will provide regular access to the impoundment facility for construction and service vehicles. Secondary access roads will be used for access through the periphy of the disturbed area. The project workforce is anticipated to stabilize at approximately 258 employees. The workforce is projected to peak at 272 in the year 1989. PUBLIC AND GOVERNMENT ENTITY COMMENTS Storm King Mines filed a Statement of Intent to apply for land use permits with the Garfield County Board of County Commissioners on September 22, 1983. On October 4, 1983, Garfield County suggested that Storm King Mines conduct two public informational meetings prior to the Pre -Application meeting with the Board. Storm King Mines filed a Pre -Application Notice for a permit on November 18, 1983. Upon receipt of the Pre -Application Notice the Board: 1. Notified the local government entities within the impact area that will be affected by the project; 2. Transmitted a copy of the Pre -Application Notice to the affected government entities; 3. Advertised a summary of the Pre -Application Notice in the Glenwood Post newspaper on December 7, 1983 and the Valley Journal newspaper on December 8, 1983; and 4. Filed a copy of the Pre -Application Notice with the Garfield County Clerk and Recorder. The recommended public meetings were held in Glenwood Springs on December 12, 1983 and in New Castle on December 13, 1983. Storm King Mines made a presentation to the Garfield County Planning Commission on December 14, 1983. The Board of County Commissioners conducted the Pre -Application Meeting required in section 5.08.04.05 of the Garfield County Zoning Resolution on January 16, 1984. There were numerous comments about the Storm King Mine project that were made at the public information meetings and the Pre -Application meeting. The comments can be generally catagorized into two types of concerns; land use and fiscal concerns. The summary of the comments follows. • • LAND USE ISSUES Comments were received concerning: 1. The duration of the development and operation of the mine; 2. The visual impacts of the surface facilities; 3. The rail and highway accesses to the site; 4. The impacts on the Riverbend Subdivision; 5. The mine impacts on domestic and agricultural water systems in the area; 6. The access to existing recreation areas abutting the property; 7. The project's impacts on wildlife in the area; 8. The dust suppression techniques that may be utilized for the project; 9. The noise of the operation; 10. The safety aspects of the project, particularly along the proposed railroad tracks; and 11. The preservation of agricultural lands within the project boundaries. FISCAL IMPACT ISSUES Comments were received concerning: 1. The market destinations of the coal; 2. The duration of the development and operation of the mine; 3. The size of the workforce; 4. The potential fluctuation in the local economy; and 5. The amount of money generated for the City of Glenwood Springs from royalty payments. -3- • SCOPE OF STUDY The scope of study comprising the Fiscal Impact Analysis shall include the following subjects: 1. The location and purpose of the Major Project; 2. Estimated construction schedule; 3. Number of employees for construction and operating work force; 4. Direct and indirect tax bases and revenues associated with the project; 5. Demonstration of consistency with local land use plans; 6. Total direct and indirect population associated with the project, including the rate, distribution, and demographic characteristics of the population change; 7. The direct and indirect effects of construction and operation of the Major Project within the impact area, including but not limited to the following: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. J. k. Economic base; County services; Housing; Transportation; Sewer and water facilities; Solid waste facilities; Public safety and fire protection; Educational facilities; Health services and hospital facilities; Recreation facilities; The fiscal impacts of the Major Project on public facilities and services of each government entity in the impact area; 8. Definition of impact areas: a. A list of and b. The basis entity in APPROACH each government entity in the impact area; for inclusion or exclusion or each government the impact area. Storm King Mines shall prepare two impact scenarios for review as part of the Fiscal Impact Analysis. One scenario shall assume that a high proportion of the total Storm King workforce will consist of local residents hired for the project. A second scenario shall assume that a high proportion of the project workforce will consist of a of non -local workers who will move into the area to work on the Storm King project. -4- • • SCHEDULE Storm King Mines has indicated that 45-60 days will be required for the preparation of the project Fiscal Impact Analysis. The project sponsor has indicated that the Fiscal Impact Analysis shall commence immediately upon completion of the Pre -Application Report. EXEMPTIONS Storm King Mines has not requested any exemptions to the provisions of the Fiscal Impact Mitigation Program per section 5.08.04.05 of the Garfield County Zoning Resolution. • 3ri111L October 11, 1983 Mr. Dennis Stranger Director, Department of Development Garfield County 2014 Blake Avenue Glenwood Springs, Colorado 81601 Dear Dennis: The proposed work program is presented for your review and comment. We are prepared to go through the proposal with you at the next meeting. Hopefully, we will be able to finalize the work program at that meeting. We would also like to discuss Task 1 and take it as far as possible in identifying existing usable data and follow-up contacts we will need to make to fill in gaps and those areas where basic data may not be available. We hope to be able to move on this project by the week of the 17th. Call me if there are questions before the meeting. Sincerely, bditelA.6"1 oLketelef)4-1, William Lamont, Jr., AICP is CC Principal WL:ckc Briscoe, Maphis, Murray & Lamont, Inc. • 2855 Valmont Road, Boulder, Colorado 80301 • 303-447-0970 • • STORM KING MINES: PROPOSED WORK PROGRAM 1.0 INTRODUCTION Storm King Mines, Inc. proposes to develop a coal mine west of Glenwood Springs and southeast of New Castle. As part of the process of receiving a special land use permit from the Garfield County Commissioners, it is necessary to analyze the potential effects of the mine development on the county, other affected local government entities, and the county's residents. On the completion of the analysis, a mitigation program must also be developed, if necessary, to provide for the timely availability of services that would be necessitated by the mine development. Integral to the Land Use Permit is the development of the Fiscal Impact Mitigation Program report. The following work program is designed to meet the intent and requirements of the Fiscal Impact Mitigation section of the Garfield County Zoning Resolution while keeping the nature, scale, and character of the mine proposal in perspective. 1.1 STUDY OBJECTIVES This project, by virtue of the definition in the Fiscal Impact section, qualifies for consideration as a major project (200+ employees) but has characteristics distinctly different from the very large oil shale projects that Garfield County has been reviewing over the last few years. Therefore, the objectives to be pursued in the work program have considerations which vary in some areas from Garfield County's recent experiences. The following objectives have been used to guide the development of the work program. 1. To prepare an analysis which meets the requirements and the intent of the resolution. 2. To place emphasis on the analysis and implementation aspects as opposed to the data gathering and number projections methodology. 3. In keeping with objective 2., to utilize to the maximum extent all existing data and information from recently completed studies such as BMML - 1 - October 5, 1983 • i Chevron's Clear Creek Project, Union Oil Company, CITF, and any other local studies involving ski or other mining proposals. This information was gathered with assistance from local staffs, reviewed by them for accuracy, and therefore should not be duplicated to save staff time and public monies. 4. To utilize methodology in the analysis which is simple, understandable, and pertinent to the Garfield County setting. S. To project numbers only for key points in time to avoid obscuring the analyses with data, tables, and quantity of information. 6. To recognize the uncertainties of any projections where resource development is dependent on the economy and marketplace; to emphasize potential significant problem areas for concentration and a program; and to permit adjustments as the project proceeds towards operation. 7. To approach the analysis from a position that permits the incremental effect of the project to be isolated and to avoid losing the project's effect in a base totally dominated by the scale of oil shale projects. The size of the project is insignificant compared to the effect of one oil shale project. 8. To provide alternative analyses which emphasize a minimum local hire and a maximum local hire situation. 9. Stress local goals in the accommodation and assimilation of the project into the county with concern for the actions necessary to realize these goals. 10. To prepare a Fiscal Impact Analysis which meets the requirements and is acceptable to the county in its methodological analysis as required by the county's regulations. A mutually acceptable (to Storm King Mines and to the county) analysis, mitigation program, and monitoring program is the goal. BMML - 2 - October 5, 1983 • i 2.0 WORK PROGRAM The work program identifies the tasks, including the reports to be provided and a schedule of when such materials will be made available. Specific roles are also identified. The reports will be provided as available to the Storm King Company, as well as for local staff review and concurrence. 2.1 TASK I: CURRENT CONDITIONS 2.1.1 Areas of Concern Identify areas of concern and affected agencies. Initially it will be necessary to project the geographic area that might receive significant impact from the proposed mine. Within that area, what are the agencies that could be affected to a significant degree to warrant detailed analysis? BMML will review these conclusions with local government staff to reach agreement. This will be an initial cut, recognizing that additions or deletions might be warranted as the study progresses. Accessibility to the mine, local vendors, location of housing or developable subdivisions, agency boundaries, financial capabilities, attractiveness of an area, availability of services, and other factors similar to what are used in the spatial allocation task will be considered. 2.1.2 Availability of Existing Inventory Data This effort is directed at three goals: o Description of existing environment; o Calibration of the model; and o Description of potential local labor supply. Baseline conditions have been studied thoroughly in the area several times over the last few years. Chevron, Union Oil, CITF, and other more minor efforts have collected and organized data regarding population, housing, and budgets. After BMML - 3 - October 5, 1983 • • reviewing the current nature of the available data in the various reports, selective updating may be necessary. We would hope to minimize the amount of further effort required by local agencies to provide us with data or answer questions about the current situation. With the slowdown of activity in the area, we anticipate that local governments have, for the most part, stabilized their activities, including capital additions, so as to keep a picture similar to what has been identified in these studies. We anticipate that describing the potential labor force is one area that will require some basic research. Most existing studies have not gone into this area to the degree we believe this proposal warrants. This includes not only existing labor force characteristics and availability, but also information of students both in the public schools as well as in the colleges, a percentage of whom will become part of the labor pool. 2.1.3 Summarize Existing Environment Based on the data collected in 2.1.2, BMML will summarize the no action projections for each major entity (2.1.1) anticipated to be affected by the project. The output of this task will be a write-up of this summary of current conditions and the projected no action description of each major entity. We will not analyze independently other economic sectors or forces. We will use available descriptions, organize them for this study, and summarize them. Where unavailable, we will use the current situation description as the baseline, thereby rendering a conservative analysis of the incremental effects of the proposed Storm King Mines. 2.2 STORM KING MINES PROJECT DESCRIPTION The project will be described in terms of, for example, employment characteristics (labor skills, salary levels, numbers, etc.), investment level, potential level of local purchases, timing and phasing of employment (construction and operations) and development, traffic characteristics (railroad needs, trucking needs), specific public improvements that are proposed, local hiring alternatives, and anticipated taxes. Local hire estimates will utilize the information collected in 2.1.2 to determine realistic potential local hire estimates. In addition to the project description, this task will determine the two alternatives to be analyzed, i.e. the percent of local hire in a maximum local hire situation and a BMML - 4 - October 5, 1983 • • minimum local hire situation. These alternatives will be used for projections of the incremental effects of the project on services, housing, revenues, and costs. All of the following tasks will be done for both alternatives. Storm King Mines with assistance from Jeff Pecka will be responsible for the project description while the alternatives to be analyzed will be jointly agreed to by the applicant and the county staff. A written description of the project will be prepared. 2.3 PROJECTION OF PROJECT -RELATED EMPLOYMENT AND POPULATION Based on the project description, the employment (direct and indirect) and the population related thereto will be projected. It is anticipated that the population will be identified for the base year (1983), and projected annually for the six years of mine development and for 1990, or for seven years of projections. 1990 would represent a stable year of mine production after the construction phase is totally completed. The Action Handbook model, using updated multipliers, corrolated back to the PAS model (model used for CITF studies) will be used. BMML will prepare tables for each alternative showing the projections for the designated years. 2.4 SPATIAL ALLOCATION The population will be distributed to the various governmental entities through a round table work session with local staff, BMML and SKM representatives. The same factors used in Task 2.1 will be reviewed, but in addition, the effects of the two alternatives for local hire will be considered, as well as the information from the existing conditions summary. Conceivably, at this point, new entities may be added or others dropped from the analysis. BMML will summarize the allocation in table form with a brief summary text. 2.5 FACILITY/SERVICE PROJECTIONS This task will require two steps, and is a manual process. BMML - 5 - October 5, 1983 • • 2.5.1 Calibration of the Action Handbook Facility and Service Chart This calibration will tie directly back to the standards used by CITF, but localized where a specific standard is materially different. Local staff review of the chart standards will be required before agreement and moving to the next step. 2.5.2 Incremental Projections of Facility/Service Needs (Including Housing) For each governmental entity agreed to be analyzed as being affected, the projections of need would be made for three critical years (base year, year when 75-80% of construction is completed, and the final year of construction). These projections would be for the incremental effects of the SKM project only, not for the no action needs. As previously mentioned, combining SKM with the no action is likely to totally obscure a project of this small size. If the threshold of any critical service is approached or exceeded, additional years of projection will be necessary to identify when the issue becomes critical. A summary report including tables will be prepared for this task. 2.6 INCREMENTAL PROJECT -RELATED REVENUES BY ENTITY BY KEY YEAR These projections will include: o Revenues on a per capita basis; and o Specific project -related revenues. CITF factors will be used for per capita revenues, updated to 1983 dollars. Years will be those agreed upon in Task 2.3. 2.7 INCREMENTAL PROJECT -RELATED COSTS BY ENTITY BY KEY YEAR These projections will include: o Service costs on a per capita basis; accrued capital costs - reference CITF cost standards; o Specific project -related items of a special nature; and o Threshold capital needs not identified above. BMML - 6 - October 5, 1983 • 2.8 ASSESSMENT OF IMPACT For each entity, referencing significant years, BMML will summarize the assessment of the impact in the context of the no action or local projection of existing situation (2.1.3). The results of this task may indicate that a reevaluation of the spatial allocation (2.4) is desirable with appropriate actions taken in the mitigation program to support such changes to reduce adverse effects for an entity. BMML will prepare a written summary including tables of this analysis for review. 2.9 MITIGATION PROGRAM A mitigation program will be prepared based on those entities or areas of identified problems. The specific problem (2.8) will be documented; the agency responsible for coping with the problem, company responsibility for the issue, possible actions to deal with the problem with or without company participation as warranted, and ways to monitor the success of the action in general will be suggested. BMML will prepare a report on this task. 2.10 MONITORING PROGRAM Because of the already expressed desire by Storm King Mines to maximize local hire, the lack of any significant construction force, and the gradual build up of the work force over an extended period, the anticipated impacts can already be expected to be relatively minimal. However, such a conclusion rests on achieving certain goals. Therefore, a program which allows both the company and the local governments to track the anticipated success in reaching the goals is critical. The program will focus on: o The items of concern previously identified; o Data requirements needed to track the results; o Responsibility to produce the information; o Reporting schedule; and o Contingency plans or actions. BMML - 7 - October 5, 1983 • i The monitoring effort will need to operate over the period that the mine development is anticipated to be constructed. 2.11 SUMMARY REPORT AND HEARINGS The various reports and tables will be combined to constitute the Fiscal Impact Analysis report required by the county's resolution. BMML will also attend the hearing at the county. 3.0 PROJECT MANAGEMENT BMML will conduct the study with in-house staff. Bill Lamont will be the principal in charge; Jim Murray, project manager; and Bonnie Reid and Andy Briscoe, support as required for technical and strategy issues. 4.0 SCHEDULE The following schedule delineates a very rapid program which hinges on the ability of local staff and SKM to be available for necessary meetings to review the various tasks. BMML - 8 - October 5, 1983 SCHEDULE el CO I MI <Vi v) 1 Current Conditions • • Project Description 1 ƒ ƒ 2 a) ° c m ) \ § ƒ / /� // c =2 c / \ / > / / / / C 2 [: / / ( / \ .2 v 'o • \ 2 >- ii cc \ \ 4- 48 •EQ > _n>.' _ % o E {1- 111 x 4- 0 • x D E \ \ O 2 ƒ 2 E i E { •2 'E E ' ' > m g , Ow o Q k 7 2 3 2 3 Summary Report and Hearings October 5, I 983 31flL Memorandum To: Sam Arentz, Dennis Stranger, Ken Resor, John Fernandez, Jeff Pecka From: BMML Date: October 24, 1983 Subject: Based on our initial discussions, the following agencies will be analyzed for their current situation under Section 2.1.2 in the work program: Garfield County Glenwood Springs Newcastle Silt RE -I (Roaring Fork School District - Glenwood Area) RE -2 (Rifle School District - Silt and New Castle) West Glenwood Sanitation District West Glenwood Water District Glenwood Springs Rural Fire District Silt/Newcastle Rural Fire District The basis for this initial selection was the likelihood that these entities would experience some population growth as a result of the development of the Storm King Mines. Employees may be attracted from other areas, specifically Carbondale or Rifle, but it is expected that these would be people already established in those communities, and even then that not very many would travel the distance to work unless employment opportunities readily decline. Newcomers to the area as a result of Storm King Mines employment are much more likely to locate closer to the mine in communities which offer equal or better services, housing opportunities and job opportunities for other members of the employee's family. There will be an opportunity to reassess this decision during Task 4.