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• living snowfences, are designed to reduce surface wind velocities and <br />exposure, and increase available soil moisture by capturing wind-blow <br />snow. Additional advantages inherent in the establishment of living <br />snowfences include increased deposition of wind blown seed from <br />indigenous vegetation species and conditions favorable to <br />multiplication of essential micorrhizal fungi. <br />With prevailing winter winds from WNW, living snowfences will be <br />established as close to perpendicular to the prevailing wind <br />direction as practical. Snowfence plantings will consist of 20 foot <br />wide strips of Great Basin wildrye planted at a rate of 20 pounds PLS <br />per acre. Strip plantings will be spaced at 120 to 200 foot <br />intervals, with the closer spacing where there is greater wind <br />exposure. <br />As standard reclamation practice, Kerr Coal seeds reclaimed areas in <br />late fall. Late fall seeding allows the seed to winter over, with <br />germination in the spring when soil moisture conditions are optimal <br />due to melting of the accumulated snowpack. During the winter, the <br />soil surface freezes to a depth of 12 to 15 inches or more, with <br />accompanying crusting and agglomeration providing significant <br />protection from wind erosion. <br />With rapid germination accompanying spring snowmelt, the new <br />vegetation quickly establishes both a protective surface cover and <br />the root network necessary to stabilize the replaced soil materials. <br />For those areas requiring supplemental stabilization, Kerr Coal will <br />plant selected annual grasses or cereal grains as living mulch during <br />the first year following topsoil replacement. Living mulch will also <br />be planted if for any reason the permanent revegetation seed mix <br />cannot be seeded on a newly topsoiled area in the fall. <br />• Kerr Coal will uti]ize only selected mulch species which do not form <br />viable seedheads under site conditions in order to minimize <br />competition with those species included in the permanent seed <br />mixture. With consideration to climatic adaptability variations, <br />816-151Rb Revised - August, 1990 <br />