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Janet Binns July 15, 2015 Page 7 In the Division's "Guidelines for Compliance with Land Use and Vegetation Requirements for Coal Mining" issued on 16 June 1987 it reads: "In the Coal Regulations, the definition of woody plant does not include half shrubs (low shrubby perennials with woody bases but herbaceous upper stems). Half shrubs (also known as suffruticose) species should be included in the cover and production but not in the density sampling. Common half shrub species include fringed sage (Artemisia frigida) Louisiana sagewort (Artemisia ludoviciana), Gardner Saltbush (Atriplez gardneri), winterfat (Ceratoides lanata) snakeweed (Xanthocephalum sarothrae) and soapweed (Yucca glauca)." Rule 1.05 (54) states "`Half -shrub' means a perennial plant with a woody base whose annually produced stems die back year to year. For purposes of 2.04.10 and 4.15, half - shrubs shall be treated a perennial herbaceous vegetation." The comments of the Division related to the concerns identified by EFCI's consultant (Crofts) that were originally identified by his reclamation monitoring conducted in 1987, as reported to EFCI in 1997, fail to address the fact that the Division has changed their definition of "woody plant" since EFCI originally proposed their standard in 1980 and is now using a different definition of "woody plant" that has never been addressed by the Division for the Southfield Mine, nor have they ever brought this specific concern to the other coal operators in the Purgatoire River Valley, specifically the current New Elk Mine (old Allen Mine), nor the current Golden Eagle Mine (old Maxwell Mine) where their shrub density standards were formulated on a definition which is no longer acceptable to the Division. For this reason alone, the Division must allow EFCI to revise their woody plant density standard to use the current regulatory definition and not some definition which no longer applies. PURGATOIRE RIVER VALLEY MINES WOODY PLANT DENSITY STANDARDS As recommended by the Division, we have expanded our discussion of this issue relative to the comments EFCI submitted in connection with the Division's "preliminary adequacy letter dated April 9, 2015" which we submitted on 12 May 2015, wherein we only addressed the Raton Creek Mine, operated by EFCI. In the following discussion, we will address data from the current New Elk, Golden Eagle, and Lorencito Mines as well as expand our discussion of the woody plant density standard approved by the Division in 2005 for the Raton Creek Mine. New Elk Mine. (163 disturbed acres, none Phase III released) According to the recently approved shrub density revisions found in TR -68, there are approximately 130 acres of reclamation on this mine site, which has a woody plant density revegetation success standard of six shrub clumps, 10,000 feet in size that will be planted with 100 woody plants in each clump or for a total of 600 woody plants. Survival of the planted shrubs and trees at the end of the bond liability period must be at least 65 percent. The overall shrub clump density will be approximately one shrub clump per 21.67 acres of reclamation. According to baseline woody plant density counts made by Uniscale on this mine site in 1980, for the Ponderosa Pine - Douglas Fir - Oak vegetation type, the woody plant density was reported to equal 10,611.2 plants per acre. Gambel Oak was the dominant plant contributing 57.2% of the woody plants. On the Ponderosa Pine - Oak vegetation type, the woody plant density of this type was reported to equal 9,198.8 plants per acre. Gambel Oak