Laserfiche WebLink
as a shrub conducive reclamation procedure, CDMG may be contacted to initiate <br />alternate reclamation procedures for the remainder of Colowyo reclamation. <br />[As of March, 2008, these test plots had not been constructed because of the impending <br />revision to the reclamation plan. Because of this revision and the reasonable promise of <br />success for the new proposed procedures, construction of these test plots has been placed <br />"on-hold" until as such time as they may become necessary.] <br />4.15.7 DETERMINING REVEGETATION SUCCESS: GENERAL <br />REQUIREMENTS AND STANDARDS <br />The following text in this section and the next section (4.15.8) supersedes all previous <br />text on this subject matter. <br />During the summer of 1980, two reference areas were selected to represent the two major <br />vegetative communities to be disturbed, sagebrush and mountain shrub. The locations of <br />these reference areas are shown on the Vegetation map (Map 4) and Regional Vegetation <br />map (Map 3). Extensive, detailed vegetative sampling was performed, duplicating the <br />methodologies as described in Section 2.04.10. <br />The reference areas were sampled for herbaceous cover, herbaceous production and <br />woody plant density. Species diversity was determined utilizing herbaceous cover data <br />from the premining inventory of the sagebrush and mountain shrub communities. The <br />reference areas are each approximately seven acres in size. <br />Statistical tests were performed on the vegetative data from the reference areas to prove <br />that they were comparable to the premined area. The parameters compared were <br />herbaceous cover and herbaceous production. <br />Sample size adequacy tests were performed on both the premine and reference area data <br />to insure that representative cover and production data had been obtained at the 80% level <br />of confidence. <br />Where necessary, the mean, variance and number of observations for the premine and <br />reference area data were used to perform t-tests on the cover and production data to <br />insure that there were no significant differences, at the 90% level of confidence, between <br />the sets of cover data and production data. <br />A copy of the transect data summaries for cover, production and woody plant density can <br />be found in Exhibit 10, Vegetation Information. <br />During the summer of 1980, when the reference areas were chosen, the final mine plan <br />had not been completed and, the sagebrush reference area was inadvertently located <br />within the area to be mined. Since the reference area is to remain undisturbed during the <br />life of the mining- operation to insure that reclamation success criteria can be measured <br />after final reclamation, another suitable sagebrush reference area was chosen. <br />4.15-12 Revision Date: 3/14/08 <br />Revision No.: TR-72