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EXHIBIT J- VEGETATION INFORMATION <br />Taylor Basin displays a range of high alpine vegetation characteristic of this elevation, <br />aspect, and moisture availability. However, the lazgest and most predominant vegetative <br />type is the high altitude turf and forbe habitat occurring over 70% or more of the affected <br />land area. These azeas are steep slopes with approximately 65% vegetative cover and <br />35% rock and rock fragments. High altitude wheatgrass occurs in abundance, primarily <br />Elymus ttachycaulus, Slender Wheatgrass. Other primary species identified at the site <br />include Trisetum spicatum, Spike Trisetum, Poa glauca, Tundra Bluegrass, Phleum <br />alpinum, Alpine Timothy, and Testuca thurbeti, Thurber's Fescue. Grasses range in <br />height between six and eighteen inches. Forbes noted at the site included Senecio <br />atratus, Groundsel, and Epilobium angusdfolium, Fireweed, and wild strawberry, ranging <br />in growth height between four and twenty-four inches. Shrubs growing at the site <br />include high altitude Ribes, current, common cinquefoil, and mountain whortlebeny. <br />The turf habitat covers steep mountain slopes up to 50% grade with aged zones of <br />standing dead pine and spruce remnants from past forest fires or die out. The alpine turf <br />habitat might be chazacterized as a mix of sod forming (wheatgrass) and bunchgrasses <br />(bluegrass, fescue, and timothy) with a lesser fraction of forbes and shrubs species in <br />small clusters throughout the azea. The turf habitat, the primary vegetative type found in <br />the affected rand azea, will be the preferred choice of the re-vegetation program. Return <br />of disturbed lands to alpine turf habitat affords the maximum potential for the post- <br />mining land use, wildlife habitat. <br />The southern portions of the affected lands lie within a zone of dense forested land, <br />populated mainly by Engleman spruce and Lodgepole pine, up to thirty feet tail, with <br />some Aspen intermixed with the evergreen species especially along the drainage-way. <br />For the most part, the forested ground along the western side of the affected land will be <br />utilized to develop a stable area above and to the west of the marble bed extraction area <br />via mine bench development. The tops of the mine benches will be re-vegetated to alpine <br />turf habitat, affording additional forage volume for wildlife in a shorter time frame than <br />establishing trees at this elevation and limited water resource for tree seedling <br />maintenance. <br /> <br />21 <br />