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Aspen Study Review Comments Aspen Study Plan The detailed first year study plan is included in Appendix 22-3 of the Seneca II-W permit application package, Aspen Study Plan. The study design included four blocks of aspen transplants (50 per block), within each of two soil treatments, "modified" (i.e. rotocleared) and "normal" (i.e. non-rotocleared). The soil for each treatment was obtained from an aspen grove in advance of mine operations, and was replaced at an approximately uniform 4 foot thickness. The blocks within each soil treatment included a high, medium, and low irrigation rate treatment, and a control, which received no supplemental irrigation. Although not formally addressed in the study plan, the elk fenced study plot included substantial azea within each soil treatment that was not irrigated or planted with aspen saplings. It was anticipated that some aspen sprouting from root segments within the replaced topsoil might occur, and that the extent of suckering might differ between the two soil treatments. in addition to the detailed first year "pilot study" plan and schedule for transplanting aspen using drip irrigation, the Appendix addresses, in Section 8.0, additional techniques to be field tested including the . "mother plant technique" and the "aspen sapling farm". Commitments regarding future management and research associated with the aspen study are addressed in Section 7.0 and Section 9.0 of permit Appendix 22-3. In section 7.0, the plan notes that "iffirst-season drip irrigation proves to be successful in allowing aspen to survive transplanting, additional reseazch might be necessary...". Potential topics for continued research are stated to include: • How long will supplemental irrigation be necessary? • Will transplants be capable of re-establishing clones through root suckering? • What will be the long term growth and survival rates? • What approaches will be necessary to "wean" transplants from supplemental irrigation. Within Section 7.0, SCC commits to submit information and/or requests for additional study no later than December 2006, and further commits that supplemental irrigation will continue through the 2006 field season at a level of irrigation to be determined by the 2005 study results. Within Section 9.0, SCC indicates that, if the studies and field trials prove successful, "SCC will apply these techniques to the aspen establishment plots as depicted in Exhibit 22-1 and 22-1A, Post Mine Vegetation Map". Section 9.0 contains the further commitment that "SCC will make an evaluation of these trials and tests by the fall of 2008".