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Results <br />The soil survey of the area (SCS, (981) generally identifies the soil series to be <br />expected in this area as the Fughes Loam, IS-25 percent slopes. The description of this <br />series indicates origins from alluvia] or colluvial origins in sedimentary materials. The <br />A horizon is characterized by a loam texture with up to 20 percent stone fragments. <br />Color is dark (lOYR) with value ranging from 2-3 and chroma ranging between 2 and <br />3. The B horizon has a color range of SYR-7.SYR, with value of 2-4, and chroma of <br />2-4. The B horizon tends from heavy clay loam to clay and may extend to over 40 <br />inches. The C horizon is dominated by clay. <br />Table 1 depicts the physical characteristics of the test pits investigated at the <br />development waste pile area. Figure 1 depicts the locations of the test pits. <br />Neither Test Pit for 2 showed any indication of a native topsoil horizon underlying <br />roadbase or development waste material. Material observed in Test Pit 1 was very <br />similar in physical characteristics to that in the lower layer of Test Pit 2, and is <br />hypothesized to be from the same layer. Roadbase material, representing the top 12 <br />inches of Test Pit 2 differed significantly in physical character from any of the horizons <br />or layers observed in either Test Pit 1 or Test Pit 3 (native undisturbed soil). The A <br />horizon observed in Test Pit 3 also differed from horizons or layers found in the other <br />test pits. Color of the observed A horizon in Test Pit 3 differed significantly from that <br />in Test Pit I and Test Pit 2. While the colors of subsoil layer in Test Pits I and 2 <br />correlate well, the A horizon in Test Pit 3 is significantly redder in value. <br />Discussion and Conclusions <br />Through careful selection of test pit locations at the Lone Pine development waste pile <br />facility, a representative cross-section of native and disturbed areas was sampled. <br />Roadbase and subsoil materials from test pits within the disturbed azea revealed <br />distinctly different physical characteristics than the upper soil horizons observed in the <br />test pit dug in the native undisturbed soil adjacent to the facility. No observation was <br />made of development waste material (or other foreign material) overlying native <br />undisturbed in-place soil, as alleged in NOV C-95-016. <br />In the July 12, 1995 inspection of the area cited in the NOV, the CDMG inspector <br />observed vegetation growing, and concluded that the presence of vegetation further <br />supported the CDMG contention that topsoil had not been stripped from the cited area. <br />I investigated the vegetation in the cited area and drew a distinctly different conclusion. <br />The majority of the vegetation species present in the cited area were herbaceous grasses <br />and forts, whose characteristics as rapid invaders of newly disturbed areas are well <br />documented in botanical, ecological, and reclamation literature. One woody species, <br />snowberry (Symphoricarpos sp.) was present. Significantly, the individual snowberry <br />plants observed were resprouting from dead stalks of formerly mature plants. The <br />conclusion I drew was that in stripping topsoil from the azea, some live root crowns of <br />-2- <br />