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MCKINLEY HINE: VEGETATION BOND RELEASE CRITERIA BASED ON SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE TECHNICAL GUIDE RANGE SITE DESCRIPTI ONSI Wayne R. Erickson2 Revegetation success standards using locally ad- justed Soil Con serva[ion Service Technical Guides (WP-1) in conjunction with Order III Soil Surveys were esta- blished during [echafcal review of a permanent program permit application for The Pittsburg d Hidvay Coal Min- ing Co.'s McKinley Hine. Regulatory acceptance of these standards suggests that vege[a tlon baseline studies for [he estab li shmen[ of revegetatlon success criteria may be unnecessary if SCS Range Site Descriptions are avail- a61e. INTRODUCTION Permit ing History In 1980 The Pittsburg E Hidvay Coal Mining Co. (P6M) submitted a permanent program permit applica- tion to the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) and the Nev Hexico Mining and Miners is Division (MMD) for the McKinley Mlne, McKinley County, Nev Mexico. Nhen vegetation baseline data vas collected for this application, no published guidelines existed for [he Sta [e of Nev Mexico. in the absence of Nev Mexico guidelines, vegetation baseline data for [he mine using reference areas vas collected under a combination of guidelines drawn from [he Wyoming Department of Envl ronmen[al Quality and the Montana S[a [e Land Department programs. Sioce technical review of [he 1980 permit application vas never completed, the technical adequacy of this information vas never determined. P6M submitted a revised permit application [o [he regulatory aut hor ides in July 1983 based on the addition of a [ruck/shovel prestrlpp ing opera- tion and changes in mining sequ en clog. During tech- nical review of this permit application the vege- 1Peper presented at the 1985 Mnual Heating of The American Society for Surface Mining and Recla- matio2n, Denver, Colorado, October 7-l0, 1985. Payne R. Erickson, Envi ronmen [al Specialist, The Pittsburg 6 Hidvay Coal Mining Co., Gallup, Nev Mexieo. Cation baseline data collected in 1979 was found to be inadequate. The OSM Indicated that vegetation community types were too general. P6H could no[ persuade the OSM to reconsider this position. There were six commun i[y types in the original baseline data which covered approximately 27,000 acres of lease. The communities included Pinyon/ Juniper Woodlands, Sagebrush, Rebbi[bruah, Crease- wood, Carden Plots and Disturbed Lend. The OSM rea- soned the[ since the community Lypes represented such a large area, chat [he~productivf ty measure- ments were not a true reflection of the areas pro- ductive capacity, nor were [hey a valid indicator of the richness of species diversity. This in turn cast doubt on the validity of revegetatlon success standards. P6M then submitted in [he petmit application package an Historical Data Monitoring pr oposel from which revegetation success standards you ld be de- veloped after the required 7 year mon It or ing period. This method you ld eliminate the need for reference areas and you ld take Sn to account the extreme varl- a6111ty Sn precipitation quantity end distribution [ha[ o[cu rs in [he McKinley Mine region. The M!ID agreed with this approach, but the OSM indicated that this vas oat acceptable. The OSM maintained that success st anderda for revegetatlon must be pert of a permit application package in order for it to be complete. It seemed that an impasse had been reached for ongoing, timely review and approval of the permit application package. A delay of six [o twelve mon [hs for the collection end preparation of edditiooal vegetation information seemed lnevltable. Hwever, review of the permitting regulations (Marlow, Office of Surface Mining 4981 and Nev Mexico Mining and Minerals Div Seion 1980) revealed another poeeib le -11'J-