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0 <br />0 <br />EXECUTIVE SUMMARY <br />This report presents the results of a study on the nature of <br />peat in Colorado and the extraction of peat for commercial <br />purposes. The following summary first describes the nature, <br />location, and number of Colorado peatlands. It then <br />characterizes the peat extraction industry and its associated <br />impacts. It concludes with recommendations for the management of <br />those impacts. <br />Peatlands develop through the accretion of undecomposed <br />organic matter in areas where the soil remains saturated with <br />water for long periods of time. The rate of accretion is very <br />slow, and is variable from place to place. In Colorado, some <br />deposits are more than 10,000 years old, and have been found to <br />accrete at a rate of about 20cm per 1,000 years. As a result, <br />peatlands can not seriously be considered renewable resources. <br />Peatlands either receive their water and nutrients from <br />atmospheric sources exclusively (bogs) or atmospheric, surface <br />and ground water sources combined (fens). Bogs have low species <br />richness and pH, and for the most part do not occur in Colorado. <br />Fens are systems with high species richness and pH. They are <br />classified according to the nutrient concentrations in the water <br />they receive, and range from extremely rich fen to poor fen. <br />Because they are wetlands,- the plant and animal communities <br />found in peatlands are vastly different from those found in <br />upland (non - wetland) areas. Cooper (1989) has shown that some <br />0 ii <br />