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Ranee Inventories <br />The United States Department of Agriculture - Soil Conservation Service completed range inventories for lands within <br />the current Permit Area. Locations of vegetation inventories are shown on the Vegetation Map (Map 20). Property <br />boundary's and a description of range aspects for the surveyed areas are included on the Vegetation Map (Map 20). <br />Range inventory information, recommendations from the Soil Conservation Service for reclamation of range areas <br />affected by mining, and range condition inventories conducted by Ecology Consultants, Inc. have been included in <br />Exhibit 14, Supplemental Vegetation Information. <br />Yampa Project Environmental Analysis <br />Ecology Consultants, Inc. was contracted by Stearns Roger, Inc. in 1978 to conduct an environmental resources <br />survey for the Yampa Project Environmental Analysis. The following narrative describes the methodology and results <br />of this environmental resources survey. <br />After a reconnaissance of the region, sites were selected for detailed studies of the structure and composition of <br />characteristic terrestrial communities. Care was taken to select locations which were representative of each <br />community -type as a whole. Given their dynamic nature and the ecological variability which characterizes cultivated <br />lands, only natural communities were sampled. It should be emphasized that natural vegetation communities <br />surrounding the Mine area have been markedly affected by past and present agricultural and ranching practices. Large <br />areas of natural vegetation have been replaced by extensive tracts of dry-land hay and grain, especially in the lower <br />portions of the northern slope of the Williams Fork Mountains. Much of the regional sagebrush community has been <br />modified in terms of species composition and coverage by livestock grazing. Study sites were located where recent <br />grazing activity has been limited. <br />Four (4) vegetation communities representing the major ecosystems in the area were selected for the study. These <br />four (4) vegetation communities were as follows: <br />TR14 -36 2.04 -35 Revised 07/15/13 <br />