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• terrain, shallow soils, and the need of a hay base for livestock. Livestock operations, both <br />cattle and sheep, are important in the area. The irrigated hayland and pasture resources <br />provide hay base and winter feeding areas for herds that are run on adjacent private, Bureau <br />of Land Management (BLM), and Forest Service (USES) rangeland during the spring, summer, <br />and fall months. In years past, orchard production was important as evidenced by the number <br />of abandoned orchards remaining in the area. Irrigated haylands are primarily composed of <br />alfalfa and various complimentary grasses such as orchardgrass and smooth brome. Irrigated <br />pastures are composed of a myriad of species, both desirable and undesirable, due to <br />irregular irrigation water application, lack of periodic tillage and pasture renovation, low levels <br />of management, and overuse. Swale, bog, or riparian areas have developed in some areas as <br />a result of irrigation water runoff (irrigation tailwater). All of these areas have been classified in <br />the pre-mine land use tables as irrigated pastureland, since almost all of them receive runoff <br />from irrigated croplands or pastures but are not harvested or baled. Additionally, ground water <br />recharged from irrigation, discharges at a number of downslope areas as seeps and bogs. <br />These are very minor in area. There was no true dryland pasture in the pre-mine land use. All <br />dry areas that had vegetation were either some type of sagebrush dominated rangeland or <br />• pinon juniper community. Minor sagebrush dominated native rangeland areas generally have <br />been included in pastures that have had intensive livestock use. This has resulted in an <br />overstory of woody species and an understory of undesirable annual and perennial weedy <br />species. The original pinyon-juniper overstory in these areas has essentially been removed. <br />With the continued availability of adequate irrigation water, irrigated hayland, pasture, and <br />cropland, as well as the incidental plant communities resulting from abundant water supplies, <br />will continue to dominate the landscape around Nucla. <br />Methods <br />The presence of specific vegetation types and communities resulting from intensive <br />agricultural land use and irrigation dictated unique approaches to vegetation baseline sampling <br />within the study area at the proposed New Horizon 2 Mine. Surface mining operations <br />normally occur on native rangelands in the Western U.S., and only rarely involve agricultural <br />lands. General discussions on sampling methodologies and intensities, as well as vegetation <br />type delineations, were carried out with representatives of the Office of Mined Land <br />• Reclamation (OMLR) beginning in February 1987. A letter to the OMLR on June 15, 1987 <br />(Revised August 2006) 2 . 0 4.10 -16 <br />