2018-05-30_REVISION - M1983035 (3)

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facing is all that is needed to produce the slope of about 3:1. The exposed underlying material that was mined currently exhibits some fairly severe erosion, but that is easily corrected with a fairly thick covering of soil and good revegetation. What is more difficult to deal with is the northwestern corner of the mined area. Here slopes are high (30' to 40' +)and steep(1:1 to 1.5:1) and the slopes on the other side of the berms have been successfully planted with primarily pinyon pines, some of which are now almost full sized 33 year old trees. The slope there is about 2:1. The northwest corner of the pit will undoubtedly be the most difficult location to reclaim with regard to the amount of material that must be moved. The plan for this will be discussed later. PIT FLOOR: Exhibit F-1 shows that the pit floor is composed of a few different conditions that need to be dealt with in different ways. In some areas limited or no action is needed,but next to them there are areas that need various degrees of treatment. In some cases,the areas where there is little to no growth of vegetation, erosion there is introducing sediment into areas of good growth that is limiting the development of that growth. Over the years, the good growth areas have slowly expanded into the areas of poor growth and eventually the entire floor would become vegetated, no matter what. But that will take a very long time to complete -eventually is not very specific as to how long that is. So,by applying various treatments the whole process can be greatly accelerated. That is one of the purposes of doing reclamation in the first place - it is not a matter of doing something Nature would never do but rather taking action to accelerate what Nature would do where doing that will not create more problems than it solves. Good Vegetation Cover: There are some areas where moisture is rich and these areas have naturally revegetated into a cover that is well adapted to the local conditions. These areas should not be disturbed in the process of reclamation. So care should be exercised to avoid damaging these areas. The snapping has taken into account areas where the vegetation has not developed to such an excellent state but are also recognized as being places where sediment from more barren areas are retarding the current vegetation development. If the sediment load and deposition from those barren areas is eliminated these areas of poorer vegetation will quickly develop into a good cover. These areas of good vegetation or potentially good vegetation include both more upland sites and the rich growths in the South Basin. The primary controlling factor in the richness of the growth appears to be the higher availability of water and, to a lesser extent, the ability of these areas to limit the negative impacts from uphill barren areas that exhibit a higher rate of soil loss as a result of erosion. Vollmer Pit Technical Revision June 2018 Updated Reclamation Plan Page 6 of 26