PERMFILE57283

• Permit No: C1992080
• IBM Index Class Name: Permit File
• Doc Date: 12/11/2001
• Doc Name: BASELINE VEGETATION INVENTORY
• Section_Exhibit Name: APPENDIX 4-6 VEGETATION BASELINE INVENTORY 1982-83 A
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

• 1.0 INTRODUCTION
Pueblo Coal is developing a surface coal mine (the Carbon Junction Minel
on a 537 acre site in La Plata County, Colorado, about 1.5 miles south-
east of Durango. Approximately 225 acres of landscape will be temporarily
disturbed with the mining operations, shop and mine facilities, and
development of roads, topsoil stockpiles, and sediment control ponds.
Five vegetation mapping units occur within the permit and affected area
boundaries. Types present include Mountain Shrubland, Pinyon-Juniper
Woodland, Pinyon-Juniper Caprock Woodland, old field, and cultivated
field. In 1982, the permit area was mapped and the old field, an area
where oakbrush was burned and cleared, was quantitatively sampled for
cover, production, woody plant density, and herbaceous production. Also,
production data on the cultivated wheatfield was collected from the
local farmer in 1982. The old field will be returned to a wheatfield
following mining. Therefore, the wheat production standard for the
cultivated field represents the reclamation success standard for this
mapping unit. Section 6.0 of this report presents and discusses the data
on the old field and cultivated field mapping units.
During the 1983 growing season, Western Resource Development IWRDI
quantitatively sampled the Mountain Shrubland and Pinyon-Juniper Woodland
• vegetation types. Reference areas for each of these types were established
to provide reclamation success standards and quantitatively sampled.
Sampling included data on vegetation cover, production, woody plant
density, and shrub height. Pinyon-Juniper Caprock Woodland was separated
from the Pinyon-Juniper Woodland because of the extensive cover of bare
sandstone Caprock and shallow soils over sandstone. The affected area of
the Pinyon-Juniper Caprock Woodland was quantitatively sampled for vege-
tation cover, herbaceous production, woody plant density, and shrub height.
Reclamation success standards for the Pinyon-Juniper Caprock Woodland
have been established by prorating the Pinyon-Juniper Woodland reference
area downward ". .by the proportion observed between the reference and
affected area in the baseline data." This report discusses the results
of the 1983 sampling. The quantitative data consisting of 31 tables is
contained in Appendix A.

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