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,09/19/00 TIIE 14:51 FA% 9702411518 aflnerals & GeoloaT G Jct i sampled, or taken other steps to ensure that livestock grazing would not interfere with baseline data collection. At this point, the value of production data from significantly grazed pastures, such as the pasture in Photos 8 and 9 is questionable. The more productive lightly grazed or ungrazed pasture/haylands such as the Morgan hayland south of the gravel road, the Tuttle Draw pasture, the farmstead pasture/ltayland, and the Site 1 pasture should be sampled (or, for hayland, first cut harvest production data should be provided). Map pazcels for which quantitative data is not collected should be thoroughly described in zhe text of the application, with the justification given for not collecting quantitative data. General management practices for the various parcels in the expansion should be described, as well as specific current year management (presence or absence of livestock grazing, timing and intensity; presence or absence of irrigation, timing of application; plan for hay crop harvest, etc.). Pastureland should be sampled to adequacy for both production and cover; hayland (if any truly exists) should be sampled soley for production, or first cut harvest data provided. Due to variability uttong different fields, it might be most efficient to sample the individual fields separately to adequary, or else group two or more fields with similar apparent production and cover, but that is largely up to the discretion of the sampler, I would recommend that the operator be asked to submit a specific sampling plan prior to initiation of sampling. The final sites we visited were the approved sagebrush reference area (Photo 17), and the treated sagebrush area being tentatively considered for a dry pasture reference area (Photo 16). The exact boundaries of the current reference area were not apparent to me, but the location appears to be a shallow soil site on the top of a small mesa, dominated by big sagebrush with blue grams and snakeweed the dominant understory components. There were small patches of more productive herbaceous vegetation, dominated by galleta and needle-and-thread. The blue grams had made minimal growth so far this spring. The treated sagebrush site would more closely approximate the reclaimed dry pasture community, being dominated by introduced cool season pasture grasses such as crested wheatgrass and Russian wildrye, with very sparse sagebrush. The site had obviously been grazed by cattle earlier this season, and for this reason the value of data collection from the site (particularly production data) would be questionable. It is also not known whether the operator would be able to establish a reference area on this site over which they would have the necessary management control. I believe I had indicated to Jim Irvine that Ite should plan to sample both the existing reference area and the BLM reference area site this year (ifofficially proposed), but I'm not sure what purpose would be served by sampling the grazed BLM area this year. Sampling within the existing reference area would be to demonstrate that reference area cover (which is the success standard for dry pasture) is equal'to or exceeds affected area sagebrush community cover. I'll leave these reference area decisions up to you. In fact, 1'll leave all the decisions regarding New Idorizon sampling and standards up to you. Murari Shrestha asked that I send a copy of my memo to him, as well as to Jim Irvine, but I declined. I told Murari that I would send my memo to you, and that you would be in contact with him and with Irvine, and would probably send a letter with our recommendations. Not that I'm trying to avoid getting any further involved in this, or anything. cc: Larry Routten I~ 004