Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Roca Honda Mine

Chapter 3. Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences
Alternative 1
Under this alternative, the mine would not be developed, would not be operated, and there would,
therefore, be no need for reclamation. Current land uses would remain in place on Sections 9 and
10, the Federal lands; on Section 16, the State of New Mexico lands; as well as on Sections 11,
15, 17, and 20, the private lands through which utility corridors and access roads would be
utilized in the mining operations.
With existing land uses remaining as they currently are, there would be no effects to land use to
consider, the levels of impact for the five significance criteria would all be at the lowest possible
impact levels, and the overall impact of this alternative is determined to be not significant.
Effects Common to the Action Alternatives
Range Management
To the extent that National Forest System lands in Sections 9 and 10 are among those lands that
Cibola National Forest has identified in the forest plan as inadequate to support permitted
livestock, the temporary removal of some of these lands as grazing allotments due to the
domination of hard rock mining as an exclusive primary activity may have a restorative effect on
forage production within those parcels on these lands that contain grazing areas.
Those areas of the mine development that would permanently remain unvegetated, such as access
roads that would remain after reclamation has ended, would moderately decrease the forage lands
available on these affected lands, but this will be counterbalanced by the benefit of increased
access to the grazing lands for management and maintenance. The reclamation plan has
specifically targeted grazing as a post-mining land use, so reclamation efforts would concentrate
on reestablishing this important existing land use.
Soil and Water
Potential effects on storm water quality during mine development and operation come primarily
from heavy equipment activities associated with construction, and later during operations, the
transportation of ore and stockpile materials. When precipitation occurs, the potential for
downgradient effects from transport of sediment and, to a lesser extent, fuels and lubricants from
equipment are the greatest. To minimize the potential effects from precipitation during mining
operations, sediment control BMPs would be established downgradient of activity areas to
localize effects of rain during mine development and operations. The BMPs are described in
detail in section 5.1 of the Roca Honda Mine operations plan (RHR, 2012).
Recreation
The “Affected Environment” section on “Land Use” identified that Cibola National Forest’s
implementation of the Travel Management Rule resulted in restricting all NFS roads in Sections 9
and 10 to administrative use only. This means that there is no authorized use of roads within these
sections for recreational purposes including OHVs, except perhaps limited travel by permit for
the existing hunting land use.
The existing hunting land use would be curtailed by restricted access, including fencing, due to
safety concerns for mine development and operations. Because of the extended range of firearms
and potential danger to mine workers, it is likely that hunting activity would be restricted from
252 DEIS for Roca Honda Mine, Cibola National Forest