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WILDLIFE UPLAND REFERENCE AREA COVER, PRODUCTION, AND WOODY STEM DENSITY 1.0 INTRODUCTION On June 29 and 30, 1999, Greystone Environmental Consultants, Inc. (Greystone) established a new Upland W ildlife Reference Area for the purpose ofcomparing mined land reclamation at Picketwire Processing's New Elk Mine, approximately 35 miles west of Trinidad, Colorado. Anew reference area needed to be established for reclamation comparison due to the denuded condition of the original upland wildlife reference area, which was located just north of Colorado State Highway 12 and slightly east of the Golden Eagle Mine. The old reference area has been declared unsuitable for reclamation comparison because of widespread loss of vegetation cover for unknown reasons. The new Upland Wildlife Reference Area is located on what was formerly the Golden Eagle Mine permit area and is now managed under the Bosque del Oso State Wildlife Area /Conservation Easement. Permission for maintaining a new reference area on this property has been attained from the Colorado Division of Wildlife. The objectives for establishing the new reference area were as follows: 1. Select a new upland wildlife reference azea which represents the topography, elevation, and • exposure of the refuse disposal area and is in close proximity to the reclamation site. 2. Sample plan[ cover and herbaceous production to a level sufficient to attain ] 0% accuracy at the 90% confidence limit (d = 0.10, p = 0.10). 3. Sample woody stem density purely for baseline data purposes. 4. Prove that the new reference azea is comparable to the old reference area. The process ofestablishing a new reference area involved choosing an appropriate location, mazking the boundaries (see Figure 2), and conducting vegetation sampling for cover, herbaceous production, and woody plant density. Section 2.0 ofthis report describes the methodology employed to conduct this sampling event. Section 3.0 describes the results the sampling program and compazes those results with the data collected wherfLhe original reference area was established. Section 4.0 concludes the report. Scientific names far species mentioned in the report are provided in Appendix A. 2.0 METHODOLOGY 2.1 Upland Wildlife Reference Area The new Upland Wildlife Reference Area was selected to provide a valid area for comparison of reclamation activities at the New Elk Mine, specifically on the Refuse Disposal Area. The selected reference area is located approximately 3 miles east of the New Elk Mine within a clearing on a level • bench south of, and elevated above, the Purgatoire River valley. This area is located at a similaz elevation to the land targeted for reclamation a[ the New Elk Mine, which is approximately 7,400 feet. The new Upland Wildlife Reference Area resides at an elevation of 7,300 feet. The new Cuver Produn~on °ensin' - E<h I S-E.6Wmambv 5, 19W