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ERO Resources <br />2. REVIEW OF LITERATLRF APD EXISTING INFORtiATION <br />• <br />Recent ecological and botanical exploration of the Uintah Basin and <br />neighboring Piceance Basin has provided a substantial information base to <br />be applied to the effects of energy development on plant communities <br />occurring in this part of the Intermountain Region. Earlier e~lorations <br />provide information concerning the description, distribution and condition <br />of the vegetation in this area prior to present land use, as well as <br />energy development. <br /> According to earlier studies conducted for the Deserado Mine site (Allan <br /> 1979), information on the vegetation types of the region is provided by <br /> Graham 11935, 19371, lister (1937) and 5toddart et al. (19381. Graham <br /> produced a general review of the botany of the Uintah Basin including <br /> discussion of plant communities by elevations( zones. Lister's work was a <br /> cooperative survey carried out by the U.S. Forest Service, the Soil <br /> Conservation Service and the Indian Agency on the range management of the <br /> Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation. This unpublished report, as reported by , <br />i Dastrup (1963), contains a map of the central Uintah Basin and gives <br /> descriptions of range conditions over a large part of the reservation. <br /> 5toddart et al. conducted a survey of the Uintah Basin. This paper <br /> reports that depletion of the herbaceous zone in the juniper-pinyon <br /> woodlands was apparently the result of utilizing this area for lambing <br /> grounds as a result of the protective cover. Abuse of the woodlands <br /> reportedly took place during the spring and fall. Dastrup's treatise on <br /> vegetational change in the Uintah Basin also contains information <br /> regarding the extent of erosion occurring on the range during the 1930's. <br /> Dastrup's field studies relate that the mid- and low-elevation <br /> communities dominated by big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentate) show the <br /> greatest deterioration of grasses in the herbaceous layer. These data <br /> show that grass cover has been reduced from 77% to 18x and big sagebrush <br /> cover has increased from 47X to 85X (western wheatgrass cover decreased <br /> from lOx to 2x), Ina more recent study in Utah, Rrotherson and <br /> Brotherson (1981) show that native plant cover has been reduced on sheep <br /> range by 44 percent. <br />• <br />II.F- 3 <br />