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4.0 RECLAMATION CONSIDERATIONS The Pinyon/Juniper Woodland in the Carbon Junction Mine permit area has verying potential for reclamation. The areas with shallow soils over shales and sandstones and the areas along lower Carbon Junction Canyon on coarse, deep alluvium have a fair to goad potential for reclamation. In these areas, revegetation would result in a plant community with more even distribution of cover and biomass between plant life-forms than currently exists. Usefulness of the area for domestic and wild herbi- vores will be improved because of greater herbaceous growth along with the presence of young shrub growth and maintenance of wildlife cover in adjacent undisturbed areas and in the woody plant cover developed during reclamation. In the areas of Pinyon/Juniper Woodland where most of the surface is bare sandstone, the reclamation process would require construction of benches or Terraces into the newly exposed sedimentary rock. Placement of soil or other suitable unconsolidated material on these benches or terraces would allow development of islands of woody and herbaceous vegetation approximating present conditions. Plantings of woody species (live nursery stock) would be appropriate on the benches and in such crevices antl fractures as may be present in the sandstone surface, again paralleling the pattern of occurrence present on the site now. Productivity and value •-' to wildlife could be restored to the modest levels that currently exist. In the Mountain Shrubland vegetation type, the deeper soils of moderate texture provide good to very good potential for reclamation. The re- established vegetation would be likely to have a more open structure, with much greater herbaceous plant cover and production than is the case in the dense phases of the type now. Even compared to the burned areas in the Mountain Shrubland, herbaceous cover and production could well be more than currently exists because it would result from the seeding and nur- turing of adapted species rather than the unassisted development of volun- teer plants as has occurred in the burned areas. The value of the re- vegetated areas of Mountain Shrubland to wildlife and domestic animals probably could be substantially enhanced with the additional herbaceous production and more accessible browse. Cover for wildlife will be pro- vided in adjacent undisturbed areas as well as in the developing planted woody vegetation. Average annual precipitation in the area is expected to be between 18 and 19 inches. This amount should not limited satisfactory reclamation in the area. Soils in the Mountain Shrubland, as well as in other parts of the area, seem to be adequate in character and quantity to provide for good reclama- tion of the Mountain Shrubland type, and to supplement the soil of the Pinyon/Juniper Woodland where soil may be locally less than adequate in character and/or volume. -~-