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© The reference area concept becomes especially difficult to apply where the <br />_ potential exists to improve the vegetation of the area affected by mining. <br />•` This situation is common where sagebrush, mountain shrub, and pinyon—juniper <br />communities are found. For these areas, which are extremely common throughout <br />the west, a reduced representation of shrubs and trees is desirable in <br />conjunction with increased occurrence of grasses and forbs. In such instances, <br />the undisturbed vegetation or reference areas would not represent either the <br />woody or herbaceous revegetation standards. Obviously, in such cases, some <br />other procedure is needed for establishing standards of achievement. <br />This presents a significant challenge to operators and regulators alike <br />for while the potential to improve a site may be obvious, it is less obvious <br />how to quantify that potential and to establish the appropriate revegetation <br />standard. For example, to what extent would improved available forage result— <br />ing from a shift in species composition offset an overall decrease in total plant <br />cover or biomass? Similarly, how should a standard for reduced shrubs or trees <br />be set where dense mountain shrub, sagebrush.or pinyon—juniper occur prior to <br />mining? While the increased emphasis of other, more useful species may obviously <br />�• be desirable, the new numerical standard that would have to be met is far more <br />difficult to define. This same difficulty will occur if the standards of <br />achievement are based on historical data. <br />Parameters For Judc;ing Success <br />Besides the difficulties encountered in establishing revegetation stan— <br />dards, the paramenters themselves deserve to be rescrutinized. At present, regu— <br />latory authorities require testing for four separate parameters to determine suc— <br />cess of revegetation. These include cover, production, diversity and shrub and <br />tree density. The usefulness and need of some of these parameters are question— <br />able. Plant production, for example, can be an extremely elusive component to <br />measure and even more difficult to interpret. It should be recognized that pro— <br />duction data do not describe the total amount of useful herbage available over <br />the entire growing season. The clipping and weighing of herbage to determine <br />production (biomass) provides a single picture of what existed at the time the <br />• <br />—4— <br />SG� z �sez <br />