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useful for reclamation. It is unlikely any more soil than about <br /> 800 cubic yards could be stripped from this land. As a result , the <br /> ' revegetation growth medium will need to be mostly native parent <br /> material augmented with some native soil combined with sawdust and <br /> wood chips from the lumber operation. <br /> ' It must be recognized that as a result of a long history of <br /> disturbance the soil depth is extremely variable on this site . <br /> Therefore , accurately predicting exactly where soil •can be salvaged <br /> ' and how much can be saved would require implementing a very <br /> intensive , expensive, and time consuming soil sampling program. As <br /> a result soil salvage must work from indicators as the salvage is <br /> occurring . Where soil is found, it will be saved, but where the <br /> ' soil is not present or too thin to effectively remove wit;i a dozer <br /> it will not be saved. Furthermore , with the rather small <br /> distinction between soil , subsoil , and parent material , conducting <br /> ' an intensive soil study of the site would have a low cost to <br /> benefit ratio. In other words , although the surface soil is <br /> certainly better than the parent material , when it comes to <br /> revegetation procedures the differences are not of much <br /> ' significance. <br /> VEGETATION: The vegetation of the site is divided into three <br /> ' units . Because the vegetation was examined in November, species <br /> identification was generally not possible due to the lack of <br /> essential morphological structures needed to identify the plants to <br /> ' the species level . <br /> PIT VEGETATION: Generally there is no vegetation ir. the pit <br /> area. Some of the older disturbances on the east side of the pit <br /> ' show some growth by invading and introduced species . The species <br /> are dominated by a wheatgrass , the native Fringed Sage (A.rtemisia <br /> frigida) , and sweetclover. A few other species that produce ground <br /> ' level rosettes and have long tap roots can also be found, but these <br /> could not be identified. The leaf shape and growth form of the <br /> rosettes indicate it may be a weedy mustard . Cover in this <br /> vegetation is rarely more than 5% and, for all practical purposes , <br /> ' essentially zero. This sparse growth provides important indicators <br /> of what to utilize in the revegetation and what to expect . <br /> The sparse invasion of shallow rooted grass indicates that <br /> grass growth will need to emphasize species acaapted to well <br /> drained, gravelly soils . Also , grass growth will be slow to <br /> develop and cannot be relied upon to protect the surface from <br /> erosion for a considerable amount of time . <br /> ' The predominance of deep rooted species (sweetclover, weedy <br /> mustards? , and Fringed Sage) indicates that emphasis should be <br /> placed on species that develop deep rooting systems and are at <br /> ' least moderately drought resistant. <br /> Soil protection through the use of some kind of mulch would <br /> aid in the production of vegetation and reduce the high erosion <br /> potential of this growth medium. Generally, the vegetation will <br /> need to follow a successional path starting with deepl, rooted <br /> species to be successful . Attempting to produce a dense grass <br /> 2 <br /> 1 <br />