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• Methods Maps, in both electronic and hazd paper format of all of the reclamation blocks to be sampled in this monitoring effort were supplied by Mr. George Patterson, who also delineated in the field, the exact extent of the reclamation efforts sample in this revegetation monitoring effort at the Southfield Mine. The specific sampling methodologies used in this evaluation aze those found in the Division's "Guidelines with Land Use and Vegetation Requirements of the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board for Coal Mining" issued in June of 1988 and the "Guidelines Regarding Selected Coal Mine Bond Release Issues" issued April 18, 1995. In addition to these guidelines, the proposed regulation changes issued on Mazch 27, 2003 entitled "Revegetation, Land Use, R'ddlife and Alluvial Valley Floors" and formally adopted September 14, 2005 by the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (DMG) and corresponding documents were used with respect to sample adequacy calculations and proposed statistical comparisons. The specific limits of the specific reclamation units sampled were taken from the 2005 Annual Reclamation Report Maps for both the Southfield Mine Area and the Southfield I.oadout Area Prior to commencing the field sampling and during the preparation of this report, the Permit monitoring requirements were reviewed and discussed with Mr. Patterson and Ms. Janet Binns of the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining & Safety (DBMS) regarding the proposed sampling methods and data analysis methods to be used. Agreement on the sampling methodology used in this evaluation as well as percussion to use the proposed program amendments was obtained from the DBMS prior to initiating field sampling. In this evaluation, • the vegetation parameters of production, plant cover, species diversity and shrub density were sampled. These data were then utilized to evaluate the successfulness of revegetation efforts with respect to revegetation success standards with respect to plant cover, forage production, species diversity, and shrub density. Transact Locations. To ensure that all of the areas within each corresponding reclamation block sampled, had an equal chance of being sampled, each proposed sample azea was treated as an individual sample unit and a totally randomized sampling effort was implemented. Utilizing the 2005 reclamation maps, prepared by EFCI, and a Trimble Model XRS Pro GPS unit, the extreme north, south, east and west boundaries of each site sampled were wnverted to the 1983 Colorado State Plan South Central Zone (NAD 83) coordinate system. The interval used in the state plan coordinate system is based on foot increments. Given the typical real-time accuracy of this GPS unit of plus or minus 18 inches, all of the transact locations were field located at a sub-meter accuracy. Once the boundaries of the reclaimed area were identified, then using a specially prepared computer program which generates random coordinates, the potential transact location coordinates were identified. These coordinates were then entered into the GPS unit and the transact location starting points were mazked in the field. At each transact location starting point, the traasect direction was deterrniued by selecting a random direction based on the degrees of the compass (0 to 360.Once the transact orientation was determined, then the 50-meter tape was laid out across the site. All transacts were kept within the sample unit boundaries. In situations