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The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, Land Quality Division (LQD), Powder River Coal Company (PRCC) and the Office of Surface Mining (OSM), Denver embarked on a project to develop a bond release tracking system using both Geographical Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies. This pilot project tested the use of electronic permit data, GIS software and GPS mobile computing hardware and software for tracking the reclamation and bond release status of lands within the North Antelope Rochelle Mine permit area. The GIS application involved creating an ESRI ArcGIS personal geodatabase that contains 15 feature classes with associated attribute fields. The Personal Geodatabase was designed to support the tracking of areas which have achieved backfill verification and incremental bond release, as well as areas that have satisfied performance standards in support of achieving incremental bond release. The incremental bond release process involves the approval of specific requirements for Phase 1 (topsoil applied), Phase 2 partial release (vegetation established) and Phase 3 (reclamation complete). The GPS application of the project involved using a Trimble GeoExplorer series GeoXT during monthly inspections to monitor selected compliance features necessary to support backfill verification and the incremental bond release process. A project specific data dictionary was developed to include the relevant feature types necessary to monitor and verify incremental bond release requirements. Examples include verification of the extent (acreage) and slopes of backfill areas, surveying the centerline of restored creek channels, verification of topsoil application and depth, delineation of restored wildlife habitat features, and mapping of erosion features. |
