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Russian olive (also an alien) is part of the riparian community at the <br />• residential area east of the east portal. The riverbank between the east <br />portal and the residential area has been altered by construction of a <br />roadbed and the vegetation there has not yet been reclaimed, but remains <br />patchy and weedy Elsewhere, the riparian vegetation is often restricted to <br />the cobbly substrate at the base of an oak-shrub covered cut bank. <br />Cover values for both herbaceous and shrubby vegetation vary greatly <br />among quadrats. Forty percent of the quadrats sampled (Appendix XVII) <br />lacked any herbaceous cover. Willow seedlings were present however, some- <br />times accompanied by cottonwood seedlings or red-osier dogwood. The <br />highest values for herbaceous cover were obtained in the vicinity of the <br />Oliver Power Plant and the load-out facility where cheatgrass or dogbane <br />often predominated. <br />• Pinyon-Juniper <br />The pinyon-juniper vegetation type occurs on the permit area, but it <br />has not been affected by mining operations. It is restricted to steep <br />rocky south-facing slopes above the oak shrub vegetation. Utah juniper is <br />accompanied by big sagebrush, mountain mahogany, rabbitbrush, serviceberry <br />and occasionally pinyon pine. At its upper limits, it gives way to oak <br />shrub again, as described previously. The scattered herbaceous understory <br />includes predominantly Indian ricegrass, western wheatgrass, muttongrass, <br />and wildrye, with lesser amounts of sedges, junegrass, galleta and cheat- <br />grass. Common fortis are buckwheat, hairy gold aster, globe mallow and <br />snakeweed. The vegetation cover is rather sparse because of the large <br />• <br />2.04-46 <br />