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ERO Resources <br />Mine development on the permit area will requires careful consideration of <br />• important vegetation types. Certain vegetation types should be avoided to <br />prevent damage to these sensitive areas and in order to lessen <br />difficulties involved in rehabilitation. Other vegetation types should be <br />treated with specific mitigation measures that will reduce impacts. Still <br />others present no substantial requirements for mitigation and may be <br />potentially improved through revegetation. In the first category are <br />those vegetation types that are refugia for natural populations that have <br />been reduced from a orae larger range. The specific characteristics of <br />these refuge areas will be difficult to replace. Loss of theae areas may <br />further decrease the range of these species. <br />The secorxi category includes vegetation types that are important, yet less <br />fragile, such as sagebrush-grasslands. Mitigation measures employed in <br />these areas will lessen damage to a sufficient degree. The majority of <br />the vegetation types in this category are widely distributed on the permit <br />area. Overuse of these types also tempers the loss of quality that will <br />• <br /> <br />result from impacts that may occur due to mine development. <br />The third category of vegetation types includes those that have undergone <br />substantial alteration as the result of poor land use practices, These <br />sites, in the majority, are dominated by cheatgrass or annual forbs and <br />have no resemblance to native plant communities in terms of species <br />composition and structure, The loss of these types does not constitute a <br />substantial impact. The revegetation of areas in this third category will <br />likely result in vegetation types that have better potential for <br />self-perpetuation and higher dynamic productivity than those now found on <br />the permit area. <br />Soil replacement characteristics, as well as those now existing, have <br />adequate potential for support of viable vegetation. Revegetation and <br />rehabilitation plans on any site within the permit area must, however, <br />include adequate control on sheep grazing if self-sustaining vegetation <br />units are to be established. <br />ii <br />