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<br />Exhibit <br />Vegetation Information <br />The vegetation of this site is fairly typical of vegetation along the lower portions of the Arkansas <br />River in Colorado. Much of the bottortiland in the lower reaches of the river has been converted to <br />farmland. This is often mixed with various types of native vegetation including cottonwood forests, <br />various shrublands, and various amounts of wetland type vegetation. This site and adjacent lands exhibit <br />all of these types. Reference should be made to Exhibits C-3 and C-5 as those show the location of the units <br />described in this exhibit. Reference to Exhibit C-4 (Soils Map) may also be useful. <br />Virtually all of the disturbance to be created in this mining operation will be created in the <br />Irrigated Pasture/Cropland unit. However, some other vegetation units may also be affected to a very <br />limited extent, either directly or indirectly by virtue of those units being located adjacent to lands that will <br />be mined. This operation has been designed to create as little disturbance to natural vegetation as possible. <br />The operation has been designed to confine disturbances to mare or less domestic vegetation units. <br />A few adjacent vegetation units, although not disturbed by the operation, provide excellent clues <br />regarding the revegetation design for the operation. These units provide some description of possible <br />invasion patterns into some portions of the reclaimed operation as well as important clues regarding how <br />to most effectively reclaim the site. This applies in particular to groundwater hydrology patterns in the <br />reclaimed condition. <br />Some reference is also made to the reclamation work proceeding on the adjacent Great Blue Heron <br />Pit which is now undergoing completion of revegetation. That site provides a great number of clues and <br />design requirements to properly create good vegetation cover as well as the pathways that seem to be <br />followed in the development of hydrophyticallydominoted vegetation along the lake shores. That site can <br />also provide an experiential baseline to help guide work on this site and not repeat "mistakes" made there. <br />Finally, descriptions of various wetland units that occur on or adjacent to the site is provided (as <br />shown on Exhibit C-5). Although a vast majority of these wetland areas will experience little disturbance, <br />some small areas will need to be affected to conduct an efficient operation. Therefore, descriptions of those <br />units are provided here. <br />Agricultural Vegetation <br />Irrigated Pasture/Cropland: The Irrigated Pasture portion of this unit is composed mainly of <br />various grasses, some alfalfa, clover, plus a very low quantity of weeds, mainly Dandelion. The pasture is <br />irrigated periodically in the summer and this maintains high productivity. These pastures have been under <br />cultivation for a very long time and thus have developed a rich soil that is quite different from the original <br />soils. The soils here are classified as Aquic Ustifluevents, a broad class containing a variety of soil series as <br />well as some units that are too immature to actually classify except in a broad sense. But, as stated above, <br />long term cultivation has largely destroyed the distinctiveness of the original soils (see Exhibit 1). <br />The Cropland portion of this unit is mainly used for growing feed corn for the landowner's dairy <br />herd. Historically this has mainly been done on the western part of the property on part of the land <br />adjacent to Highway 115. <br />Grisenti Farms Gravel Pit Original Application Exhibit J Page J-1 <br />