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The County's environmental review process for the project spanned ten years, including over
thirteen months of public review and approximately nineteen continued public hearing sessions
(including at least ten public hearing sessions with public comment and/or testimony), and two
public circulations for comment of revised versions of the FEIR. The CEQA review process
resulted in an eight-volume proposed FEIR of over 2,000 pages in length.

The County prepared an Initial Study and Notice of Preparation (NOP) of the DEIR for the
project in late 1991. The NOP was circulated to appropriate public agencies and interested
groups and individuals for a 30-day comment period from November 6 through December 6,
1991.

The DEIR was completed in February 1999 and circulated for public review from February 1999
to November 1999. The DEIR addresses the full range of Project-specific and cumulative
environmental effects and identified mitigation measures to minimize and reduce, avoid or
compensate for the adverse effects of the project. The DEIR also discusses a number of
alternatives designed to allow the County to consider variations on the project in an effort to
make an informed decision concerning possible environmental effects and ways to minimize
such effects. The range of alternatives further considered that the project is a Federal project in
that it proposes the mining of federal public resource (i.e., the mineral estate portion of the "split
estate") and must be viewed in the context of the prior Federal land use decisions and the
issuance of Federal Contracts. An EIR is not required to consider alternatives which are
infeasible.

Based upon the analysis in the DEIR, the County Department of Regional Planning, through its
Staff Analysis issued in April 1999, recommended to the County's Regional Planning
Commission ("Regional Planning Commission") approval of an alternative to the project -- the
Reduced North Fines Storage Area ("RNFSA") Alternative -- based on the conclusion that it was
the most feasible "environmentally superior alternative."

On December 1, 1999, following public hearings in April, July, and September 1999, the
Commission, by a unanimous vote, directed County staff to prepare findings denying TMC's
application for a surface mining permit. On February 16, 2000, the Commission formally
adopted findings denying TMC's application for a surface mining permit, again by a unanimous
vote. The Commission did not take any action on the DEIR. On March 13, 2000, TMC
appealed the Commission's action to the County Board of Supervisors.

Because the project proposes mining of federally-owned minerals, it was also subject to
concurrent federal environmental review. The BLM functions as the federal lead agency for
environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), including
preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement ("EIS") for the project. A Draft EIS was
circulated for public review on May 5, 1999. On November 17, 1999, the BLM also circulated
for public review a Supplement to the DEIS ("SDEIS") that identified the RNFSA Alternative as
the BLM' s Agency Preferred Alternative ("APA"), the identification of which is required under
NEPA (see discussion below). On June 2, 2000, the BLM released its Final EIS ("FEIS") for the
project which confirmed the BLM's selection of the RNFSA Alternative as the APA. On August
1, 2000, the BLM published a Record of Decision ("ROD") approving the Federal aspects of the
Project. On January 8, 2002, the Interior Board of Land Appeals ("IBLA"), an administrative
appeal body within the Department of Interior, issued an order denying various appeals of the

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