2016-02-29_REPORT - C1981028 (12)

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Keenesburg Mine 2015 Vegetation Monitoring Report and did not necessarily soak into the ground in the quantities that the data would suggest. Additionally, September precipitation may have assisted with late -season root development and over -winter heartiness, but not necessarily increased production. The May precipitation likely gave an advantage to cheatgrass and other annual species allowing them to outcompete the perennial grasses (as discussed above). This could have resulted not only in decreased grass production, but also in decreased production overall because most of the annual species have already completed their life cycle by the time of monitoring in August and were likely desiccating and blowing away. Z3 Species Composition None of the sampled Reclamation Areas met the species composition success criteria this season. While Reclamation Areas 30 and 31 both had the required number of warm season grasses, neither site exhibited the one cool season grass species necessary to meet the requirement (Table 17). Reclamation Areas 23 and 29 fell short on both the number of warm and cool season grasses exhibiting only two and three perennial species, respectively, with greater than 3% relative cover. Table 17: Species Composition Success Standard Comparison Species Composition Success Standard Area 23 Area 29 Area 30 Area 31 Total Perennial Species* 4 2 3 4 4 Warm Season Grasses* 3 2 3 4 4 Cool Season Grasses* 1 0 0 0 0 Standard Passed? No No No No * Species included must constitute greater than 3% and less than 40% of the relative cover In Reclamation Area 31, a total of three cool season perennial grasses combined to contribute a total of 4.02% of the relative cover (Table 10). However, no one species contributed greater than 3%. Cool season perennial grasses contributed 0.85% and 0.56%, respectively, of the relative cover in Reclamation Areas 23 and 30. While cool season perennial grasses were observed as a small component of the diversity in Reclamation Area 29, no species were recorded along any of the monitored transects. 8 SUMMARY Quantitative monitoring of Reclamation Areas 23, 29, 30, and 31 revealed that they have not yet met the current final revegetation success standards. Mean total vegetation cover in all four Reclamation Areas was less than 90% of the predicted cover standard of 36.1% when cheatgrass was removed from the total. Additionally, the mean total herbaceous production values from all four Reclamation Areas were less than 90% of the 192.28 g/m2 total herbaceous production success standard. All four Reclamation Areas also fell short of the species composition standard because they each lacked a cool season perennial grass species with enough relative cover to meet the standard. Reclamation Areas 30 and 31 had four warm season perennial grass species with relative cover between 3 and 40%, Reclamation Area 29 had three, and Reclamation Area 23 had only two. Habitat Management, Inc. 22 October 2015