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-24- <br />• inches of topsoil, on top of the waste rock and tailings. And then to seed in <br />a proper fashion to try to get plant growth, to stabilize the soils and stop <br />the erosion. What has been found and what has been recognized by Soil <br />Conversation Service, Bureau of Land Management, many texts, many papers on <br />reclamation, and particularly in Colorado, and additionally have been found, I <br />think it was two years ago at the large Dillon conference on - in Dillon, <br />Colorado, on reclamation and mine drainage, was that planting success was very <br />low; .particularly at higher altitudes in Colorado. There are techniques that <br />work in Montana that do not work in Colorado for the planting techniques. <br />There are many reasons for that. A lot has to do with evaporation and <br />moisture. A lot has to do with bringing the possible dissolved :solids up <br />through the soils inhibiting plant growth and the reestablishment of plants. <br />The recommendations that came out of the Dillon Conference, which had some of <br />the top reclamation people throughout the United States attending, the final <br />recommendation after the committee meetings was that in Colorado you should <br />have somewhere between two feet to six feet of sub-soil before yc~u even put <br />your top soil on it. And to isolate it from the tailings below iit and also to <br />be sure that you have enough topsoil to hold moisture, have the <br />characteristics of topsoil to hold moisture in this area. It wa<_~ very hard to <br />reestablish the plants. If in fact, you water the plants to establish them in <br />the first place, then for most of their life they do have to be watered. <br />Additionally, there was discussed the mixing of the A Horizons and B <br />Horizons of soils. And it was mentioned in their reports that - Battle <br />Mountain's reports - that there may be nutrients in the B Horizon that in fact <br />could be utilized by the plants. Now that may or may not be. But, if that is <br />still the case, one of the remaining problems is that the soils in this area <br />have very low organic content. Fora good reestablishment of the biota that ~ <br />permit the plants to grow you need somewhere between 3 and 20% organic <br />material in your soils. And same of these soils are sub those percentages. <br />If you mix this, with the very low organic B Horizon, you're going to dilute <br />even more whatever organic material there is in your topsoil. <br />