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during the mid-April to October irrigation season, while ground water recharged from irrigation <br />may contribute to seeps and bogs over a greater period. <br />Each component of the swale/drainage type exhibits very high 10-32 levels of productivity and <br />cover, although the vegetation supports little utility other than wildlife habitat. The surrounding <br />pasture and hayland vegetation offers considerably better quality forage for livestock. The <br />boggy conditions of the swales and the occurrence of large volumes of coarse and rank <br />standing dead vegetation probably precludes utilization of the type as well. Local landowners <br />expressed somewhat derisive remarks about the type, indicating that it constitutes lands that <br />could be put to greater use if the saturated conditions could be controlled. Reference to <br />Section 2.04.11, Fish and Wildlife Resources Information, can be made for further information <br />on the type. <br />5.5 Sagebrush Type (SG, SGA, SG -2) The sagebrush vegetation type represents remnants <br />of native rangeland have not been converted to the more characteristic intensive agricultural <br />land uses in the area. These areas have not been converted because of topographic <br />restrictions affecting irrigation water application and the occurrence of rock outcrops or shallow <br />soils. The type usually occurs as small inclusions within the irrigated pasture type, within or <br />adjacent to the swale/drainage type, or is associated with facilities and disturbed areas. The <br />sagebrush type was delineated based on the dominance of sagebrush within these areas. <br />Some areas mapped as such may occasionaly receive supplemental moisture during the <br />growing season from adjacent agricultural activities, however, a sagebrush overstory with an <br />associated understory of introduced and native species are present along with the irrigated <br />pasture invader species Kentucky bluegrass. Attachment 2.04.10-8, Figure 4-6 (formerly <br />Peabody Appendix 10-4) shows one of the larger blocks of this type in the study area. A <br />grazing exclosure is also shown in the photograph. <br />Total vegetation cover (first hit) for the type averaged 37 percent, with bare ground at 29 <br />percent, litter at 30.2 percent, and rock at 3.7 percent (Table 2.04.10-11). Lichen and moss <br />accounted for only 0.1 percent of the mean cover. The shrub component dominated with 13.5 <br />percent cover followed closely by the annual grass component at 12.7 percent cover. <br />Perennial grasses and forbs at 7.3 and 2.6 percent cover, respectively, followed in importance. <br />Consistent with the type designation, Basin big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata) <br />had the highest perennial species cover at 11.5 percent (97 percent frequency), while the <br />February 2015 (TR -66) 2.04.10-42 <br />