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-t7- <br />• <br />Vegetation Type #1 -Grassland. The grassland vegetation types within <br />the affected area occupy 24.69 acres or 23.38 of the total permit <br />area. Grassland is the frost predominant vegetation type on lands not <br />currently disturbed or subjected to agricultural production. However, <br />this type is an abandoned hay pasture as evidenced by the many vegetation <br />species indicative of its past agricultural use and present disturbed <br />nature. Interviews with local ranchers and Nucla Mine personnel indicate <br />that much of the area now in grassland on the Nucla permit was abandoned <br />in 1978. Prior to abandonment, these areas were planted alfalfa fields. <br />Weedy, undesirable species such as field bindweed, buckhorn plantain, <br />curlycup gimRaeed and common Russianthistle (Salsola kali) are common in <br />tYus type. - <br />As discussed under "Data Collection" in the Methods section above, total <br />Dover (including all components of the Dover estimate; vegetation, litter- <br />rock, bare ground) seldom sums to 1008 due to the ocular estimate tech- <br />. nique employed. In the case of the grassland affected area studied, total <br />cover was estimated at 85.98. Of this total, vegetation basal Grover for <br />the grassland type was estimated at 9.78, while litter-rocJc and bare ground <br />wmprised 71.28 and 5.08 of the total Dover, respectively. Weedy species <br />account for 37.18 of the total vegetation basal cover on the grassland <br />site. Frequency values for these species ranged from 48 to 328. Alfalfa <br />medic (Aledicago sativa), brome (Bromus sp.) and wheatgrass (Agropyron sp.) <br />are representative of the desirable, more palatable, species on the site. <br />In all, forbs account for 61.88 of the total vegetation Dover and grasses <br />account for 37.18 of the total vegetation Dover. Over 908 of the ground <br />Dover rot attributed to vegetation is comprised of litter-rock. <br />Production on the grassland-affecte3 area was 815.1 lbs/acre. P9uch of <br />the total production was attributed to unidentifiable perennial grasses <br />(178) and annual forbs (32.68). Production samples must be taken after <br />the growing season has terminated, thus many of the species encountered <br />are not in a phenological state at this time that permits positive identi- <br />• fication. Wyoming DEQ, recognizing this fact, permits a life form identi- <br />fication and grcnping of veg~tativ~ sales taken for production es+:imat-as <br />(Wyoming DEQ, Guideline #2, March, 1979). <br /> <br />