Looking at the news release from May 13, 2009 by NAG, here is the timeline:

--Currently, the surface mining permit application is in process with the department of Kentucky and is expected to be approved within 60-75 days. This would put the approval sometime between July 15 - Aug 1 (this is for 67 acres)

--after this approval, there is an application to approve and extra 52 acres and this will take around 30 days. This would put the approval sometime before the end of August.

--after this an additional 4 leases of 281 acres (totalling 400 acres including the 67 acres and 52 acres) will be applied for as an "amendmend" and this should be approved within 6 months of submittal. This places production before February 2010.

The question is, will NAG start producing on their 67 acres and 52 acres respectively (sometime in late August-beginning of September) or will have to wait for the full 400 acres to be approved (before February 2010) before they can start strip mining? Does anybody know?