REP22696

• Permit No: M1988044
• IBM Index Class Name: Report
• Doc Date: 7/15/2005
• Doc Name: state land board annual status report
• From: southwestern ecological services
• To: dmg
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

The weed problem on the affected land is addressed in the new
reclamation plan, but that only applies to the land affected by the mining.
As no mining will occur in the areas where the weed problems aze most
severe, due to the elimination of in-stream mining, control of weeds
elsewhere is not addressed in that plan. It has been indicated, first by Dana
Ortiz and now by Melissa Farmer, that a coordinated p1a11 will be
developed for control of weeds. As of this time, Schmidt is not aware of
any coordinated control plan being developed. Nevertheless, by virtue of
the new Reclamation Permit amendment, which is in its Fnal stages of
development, weed control will be implemented on affected lands. But
that leaves a great deal of weedy land that must be addressed with an
overall plan. In effect, Schmidt has developed a plan to control weeds on
the land they affect, as well as land they affected in the past, but without
an overall weed control plan it is questionable as to whether the Corps
requirements will be met if one uses a broad brush interpretation of the
Corps requirements. If the Corps requirements are looked at as being more
specific to mining impact areas, then compliance is faz more likely, in
time.
N. Descriptions of any Added Value Reclamation performed (Added Value Reclamation is
reclamation work that is performed but is not a part of the mining operarion and included
in the requirements of the Reclamation Permit.)
REPORT: Other than past efforts such as the fire dump removal, nothing new has been
done.
O. If any of the other baseline information contained on the master maps (wildlife, weed
distributions, cultural resources, forest decline, etc.) is expanded or changed provide
copies of the updated master map for that subject area.
REPORT: Included in this report is a new baseline wildlife habitat map. This is
identical to the one that will be provided in the Reclamation Permit
amendment. The primary change from the initial baseline map, is the large
expansion of the extent of the large prairie dog colony in the western half
of Section 36, west of Coal Creek. Field inspection showed this colony is
faz more extensive than could be determined from satellite imagery. The
other prairie dog colonies are consistent with what was determined from
the satellite images. It was also found in the process of mapping these
colonies, that prairie dog mounds and ant hills cannot reliably be
distinguishable on the satellite images. Sometimes they are easy to tell
apart, but ground frothing of the satellite images found that many features
that were thought to be prairie dog mounds fumed out to be ant hills. On
the other hand, no features thought to be an ant hill on the image turned
out to be a prairie dog mound. It was also found that other small patterns
in the vegetation, especially a drought impacted vegetation, can be
mistaken for prairie dog mounds. On hillsides with low density vegetation
most ant hills and prairie dog mounds aze missed with th~~ image search.
The solution to this difficulty is to either map prairie dog colonies in the
field or use higher resolution imagery.
Annual Status Report - 2005 for State Land Board July 15, 2005 Page S of 10