GENERAL38550 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

the Division hopes to seek their comments on this matter in another forum this winter. I will keep you informed of any such efforts when they happen. Answers to the second question are obviously difficult to pinpoint. However, the information gathered during the tour in July will be useful to the Division. During the tour, we had an opportunity to observe the results of recent and older shrub establishment efforts. There appear to be many factors affecting the successes and failures of those efforts. It is obvious that successful establishment of shrubs on reclaimed lands is not an easy task. The Division is very aware of challenges such as competition from grasses, wildlife grazing pressure and noxious weed invasions which must be considered in assessing questions related to shrub establishment. In regard to the third question, the Division plans to discuss alternative success standards with the CDOW and the mining industry in conjunction with future rule-making or guideline revisions. We hope to address this issue in 1998. Meanwhile, revisions of regulations and guidelines are currently being drafted which will include approved sampling methodologies allowing minimum sample sizes considerably smaller than required by the current regulations. The draft rule and guideline updates referred to above are a part of an ongoing effort to revise some of the regulatory performance standards for revegetation. There are basically three parts of this effort. 1. Rule-making required by the Office of Surface Mining in order to bring all of Colorado's revegetation rules into compliance with federal requirements under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (The major components of this rule-making are, a.) including approved sampling and statistical methods in the regulatory program, b.) defining normal husbandry practices which could be performed on reclaimed land without restarting the liability clock, c.l allowing more flexibility in establishment of reference areas, d.) incorporating a counterpart to the federal "80/60" rule for woody plants and, e.) addressing other miscellaneous rules identified by the OSM as being less effective than their federal counterparts.), 2. Updating portions of the Division's 1988 "Guidelines for Compliance with Land Use and Vegetation Requirements" to be compatible with the revised rules and, 3. Revising portions of the Division's 1995 "Guideline Regarding Selected Coal Mine Bond Release Issues" to explain the statistically valid sampling techniques to be included in Colorado's approved program, as required by 30CFR 816.116(a-(1-.