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ERO Resources <br />2. OFEVIEW T:7 : l .. OVF EVISTVMIW9.' .: M <br />Recent ecological and botanical exploration of the Uintah Basin and <br />neighboring Piceance Basin has provided a substantial information base to <br />be applied to the effects of energy development on plant communities <br />occurring in this part of the Intermountain Region. Earlier explorations <br />provide information concerning the description, distribution and condition <br />of the vegetation in this area prior to present land use, as well as <br />energy development. <br />II.F- 3 <br />According to earlier studies conducted for the Deserado Mine site (Allan <br />1979), information on the vegetation types of the region is provided by <br />Graham 11935, 1937), lister (1937) and Stoddart et al. (1938). Graham <br />produced a general review of the botany of the Uintah Basin including <br />discussion of plant communities by elevational zones. Lister's work was a <br />cooperative survey carried out by the U.S. Forest Service, the Soil <br />Conservation Service and the Indian Agency on the range management of the <br />Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation. This unpublished report, as reported by <br />iDastrup <br />(1963), contains a map of the central Uintah Basin and gives <br />descriptions of range conditions over a large part of the reservation. <br />Stoddart et al. conducted a survey of the Uintah Basin. This paper <br />reports that depletion of the herbaceous zone in the juniper -pinyon <br />woodlands was apparently the result of utilizing this area for lambing <br />grounds as a result of the protective cover. Abuse of the woodlands <br />reportedly took place during the spring and fall. Dastrup's treatise on <br />vegetational change in the Uintah Basin also contains information <br />regarding the extent of erosion occurring on the range during the 1930's. <br />Dastrup's field studies relate that the mid- and low -elevation <br />communities dominated by big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) show the <br />greatest deterioration of grasses in the herbaceous layer. These data <br />show that grass cover has been reduced from 77% to 18% and big sagebrush <br />cover has increased from 47% to 85% (western wheatgrass cover decreased <br />from 10% to 2%). In a more recent study in Utah, Brotherson and <br />Brotherson (1961) show that native plant cover has been reduced on sheep <br />range by 44 percent. <br />• <br />II.F- 3 <br />