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2004 Vegetation Cover Sampling Area NH1-A, Year One Introduction Hahn Resource Inventories (formerly Intermountain Resource Inventories) conducted vegetation sampling under contract with New Horizon Mine -Western Fuels LLC, Colorado. Vegetation sampling was conducted on a 10.34 acre New Horizon I property (to be designated area NH1-A) formerly owned by Peabody Coal. The purpose of sampling was to gain bond release on that portion of New Horizon I property where revegetation adequacy success had been met. Vegetation sampling for year one occurred August 10 and 11, 2004. Prior to and during sampling, a killing or significant frost had not yet occurred. Plants had good form and vigor in relation to the years climatological aspect.. Revegetation on reclaimed lands was sampled in area NH1-A by species for percent cover. The reference area that was used for the 2000 dryland pasture reference area (Attachment- 2) was also sampled for vegetative cover to represent the standard of success by which to judge the proposed bond release (ands. This study constitutes year one, 2004, for area NH1-A. In this first year the area exceeded the standard. Sample Point Selection Individual sample point locations were selected using pairs of randomly-generated coordinates. A 1996 aerial photograph was brought into ESRI ArcView and a state plane 100 foot interval tic grid was overlaid on the map. Coordinates located within a sample area were listed and exported to Microsoft Access where a random number generatorwas used to pick pairs of coordinates for sampling locations. The numbers 0 to 359 were also entered into Microsoft Access and a random number generator used to select transect direction for the reference area sampling. Sample point locations were located from the resultant transects being plotted by UTM latitude and longitude coordinates. The observer then located that point using ahand-held GPS device. Once the vicinity of the sample point was found, a orange spike was thrown over the observer's shoulder to identify the exact location where the sampling point would be located. Vegetation Cover and Frequency Quantitative measurements ofvegetation coverand plant species frequency were made in area NH 1-A, and the dryland pasture reference area. Vegetation cover data by species was collected in these areas by the point-intercept technique applied by use of an laser point bar. The data was collected August 10 and 11, 2004. The sampling design consisted of groups of ten points sampled at 10 ft. intervals along a 100 ft. transect to achieve 100 points pertransect. Transects occurred foreach area until sample adequacywas met using standards outlined in Guidelines Regarding Selected Coal Mine Bond Release Issues, April 18,1995. Each group of ten points, with a 10cm interval between each point, was oriented such that 10 points were projected vertically downward (or upward for overhanging canopy) perpendicular to the transect. At each point, the first contact of a plant species was recorded as a "hit". If the hit was a living perennial, the vegetation was moved to see if a subsequent perennial was "hit" and recorded separately as a second "hit". Page One, Sept. 2004 Incases where vegetation was not contacted, either bare ground (soil), litter, or rock hits were recorded. Each hit represented one percent cover for a transect. For example, a plant species that was contacted 15 times on a transect had an estimated cover of 15 percent for that particular transect (15/100) x 100). Since the points were situated systematically along the randomly-located transects, each transect (i.e., •