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<br />The beginning of the pipeline route, which lies within the Piceance Site, traverses all <br />five of the upland plant communities described for the Piceance Site above. <br />Immediately upon exiting the Piceance Site, the pipeline route crosses the cultivated <br />hayfields that occupy the Piceance Creek valley bottom. On the east side of Piceance <br />Creek and Piceance Creek Road, the pipeline route ascends Hatch Gulch. The bottom of <br />Hatch Gulch is occupied by Sagebrush Association vegetation on Barcus channery <br />loamy sand and Glendive fine sandy loam, with some pinyon-juniper on the side <br />slopes. As the pipeline route comes up out of Hatch Gulch and begins to follow the <br />existing east-west natural gas pipeline corridor, the upland areas to the Greasewood <br />Compressor Station primarily support open Pinyon-Juniper Association woodlands on <br />Rentsac channery loam, interspersed with Sagebrush Association communities on <br />Yamac loam, Piceance fine sandy loam, and Irugul-Parachute complex soils. <br />The second pipeline corridor segment includes approximately 12 miles paralleling the <br />existing north-south pipeline corridor and extending from the Greasewood Compressor <br />Station south to about 2 miles north of the Rio Blanco County-Garfield County line. <br />Virtually all ridge and upland sites in this segment support Pinyon-Juniper woodlands <br />on Redcreek-Rentsac complex soils for a total of about 3 miles traversed (Steigers <br />1998a). This segment also crosses about 7 miles of Sagebrush Association vegetation, <br />mostly on Glendive fine sandy loam along the bottom of Stewart Gulch and about one- <br />quarter mile of irrigated hay meadows on Glendive fine sandy loam at Piceance Creek. <br />The pipeline corridor would also cross approximately 2 miles of the Mountain Shrub <br />Association on Redcreek-Rentsac complex soils. The Mountain Shrub Association has <br />been described by the BLM (BLM 1994) and Tiedeman and Terwilliger (Tiedeman and <br />Terwilliger 1978) as follows. <br />Mountain Shrub Association -The Mountain Shrub Association occupies higher <br />elevations on east, west, and north slopes, extending to lower elevations on cool <br />exposures. The primary environmental factor affecting the association is <br />available moisture, as influenced by elevation, soils, topography, and wildfire. It <br />is largely restricted to elevations about 7,000 feet in higher precipitation zones. <br />At lower elevations on deeper, well-drained soils, the type commonly <br />intergrades with the Sagebrush Association. The overstory varies from open to <br />dense stands, and understory species density and diversity are inversely related <br />to overstory closure (BLM 1994). Where it occurs along the proposed pipeline <br />corridor, the Mountain Shrub Association occurs primarily on ridgetops and on <br />east- and north-facing slopes (BLM 1998). It can occupy Redcreek-Rentsac <br />complex, Irigul, and Rock outcrop-Torriorthents complex soils. This community <br />is used extensively as wildlife habitat by mule deer and grouse from late spring <br />to late fall (SCS 1982). <br />The Mountain Shrub Association is a mixture of large to medium tree-like <br />shrubs, most often dominated by Gambel oak. A mixed understory of smaller <br />J-6 <br />