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a Seneca II-W extended reference area values from data collected in 2003 ° Seneca II-WS extended reference area values from data collected in 1997; it is likely that values from 2003 would have somewhat lower, so the calculated standard is probably somewhat high. As can be seen, the observed herbaceous production in both the 1996 antl 1999 reclaimed areas exceeded the production standard. The listed reclaimed area production figures are not corrected as they would need to be in actual Phase III bond release testing for the presence of annual/biennial species. The correction downward for "excess" annual/biennial species in the 1996 cover data (above) was about 12%. Since the measured production in the 1996 reclamation area exceeded the standard by 78%, the annuallbiennial correction would still leave the allowable production value well above the standard. Likewise, for the 1999 reclamation area, the correction in the cover values for "excess" annual/biennial cover was 28%. Correcting the total production downward by this amount would leave it at 1657 Ib/ac, well above the standard of 1421 Ib/ac. Woody Plant Density 2003 data from the 1996 reclaimed area indicate the presence of about 733 woody plant stems per acre. This number is only somewhat below the current standard of 900 stems per acre (1,000 x 0.9). The 1996 reclaimed area was first sampled when it was 4 years old in 2000 (ESCO 2001). At that time, woody plant density was 696 stems per acre, most of which was snowberry and big sagebrush. The 2003 figure of 733 stems per acre is encouragingly stable. Composition has shifted to a predominance of snowberry and serviceberry rather than snowberry and sagebrush. In the 1999 reclamation area, the 2003 woody plant density level of 753 stems per acre greatly exceeds the 32 stems per acre density observed in 2001 (ESCO 2002). The bulk of 2003 shrubs present were snowberry and big sagebrush that apparently germinated and established during the very dry 2002 growing season. Species Diversity and Composition The 1996 reclaimed area is dominated by native perennial cool season grasses and introduced perennial fortis (mostly titer milkvetch), comprising together almost 60 percent of total vegetation cover (Figure 5). The distribution of species density by lifeform (Figure 4) shows that the 1996 and 1999 reclaimed areas are more similar to the reference areas than would appear to be the case from the lifeform distribution of relative cover (Figure 5). This is important in that it shows that the basic components of the original ecosystem have indeed been returned and that it is a matter of relative proportions that separates the reclaimed from the native vegetation. Perhaps the largest 12