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able to be operated. Moisture in the sand froze and after mixing with snow could easily be considered similaz to the popular description of a comet - a dirty snowball. Spring amved slowly and production resumed, but the mud made operations difficult and expensive. Drying of the land did not fully occur until later in April and significant growth of the grassland vegetation did not begin until May, about four to six weeks later than normal. Until the soil dried out and warmed up, growth could not occur. Even the greening of the wetland vegetation was delayed several weeks. Seeded areas in 2006 that produced nothing germinated in 2007 with the added moisture from the winter snows, however it is yet to be determined whether what germinated is what is desired. Until the new gasses flower it is hard to tell exactly what grasses are present in the new growth. All the revegetation areas aze continuing to be amazingly free of noxious weeds, although annual weeds are still common in the younger growths. The frightening invasion of Tamarix detected in 2006 has largely been controlled with clean up of a few remaining plants to be done in 2007. Continued inspection will be necessary though as this species, once established, is very tenacious. The increased moisture has not only greatly benefitted the grasslands, but has also allowed the noxious weeds, particularly the spurge, to surge to new heights of domination in the lowland areas along the riparian corridor. In large part, evidence indicates that this domination is directly related to the depleted grass population caused by overgrazing for such a long time. Comparison to lightly grazed land north of Quincy shows that even if spurge is present, good grass growth can limit the expansion and domination by spurge. Fortunately, late in the permit year the court upheld the State Land Boazd's eviction of the grazing lessee so at least the remaining grasses can now expand some and start competing with the spurge. Unfortunately, the spurge is so thoroughly entrenched it may require a two pronged attack of spurge reduction combined with grass seeding to bring back a good condition. But just wholesale spurge reduction would help the grasses by making more resources available for their growth. The five new exclosures were quantitatively sampled in October 2006 to establish a baseline characterization ofthe woody species in diverse habitats along the riparian corridor. By the end of the report year the removal of grazing was already allowing some convergence of grazed riparian vegetation with the protected vegetation in the new exclosures. It is estimated that in a couple of years, barring any calamities or the return of grazing impacts, new protected and unprotected azeas will develop similaz chazacteristics. It will probably take a few more yeazs before the unprotected woody biomass can catch up with the woody growth in protected areas, particularly the two much older protected exclosures. It is still somewhat indefinite as to whether the riparian forest can actually make a comeback, but it is looking more and more likely that will happen now that the primary degrading agent (grazing) has been removed. Evidence from exclosure data clearly shows this is possible. It is now just a question of whether it will happen. STATUS REPORT FOR CURRENT YEAR MAPS: Following is a list of the maps that have been updated. The maps provided with this report are intended to replace the previous map. Maps that do not require updating aze also listed. Maps that are not updated therefore become the current yeaz map. Status report for 2007 (July 15, 2007) Page 2 of 12