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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 />Since the initial sagebrush reference area had been shown to be statistically comparable <br />to the premine sagebrush community, Colowyo located another sagebrush reference area <br />which was statistically comparable to the existing reference area. This new (1981) <br />reference area was intensively sampled for herbaceous cover and production, using the <br />same sampling methodologies and statistical tests that were used to compare the present <br />reference area to the premine area. On August 21, 1981 Colowyo submitted revised <br />vegetative data summarizing the results of the selection of an alternative sagebrush <br />4.15-14 Revision Date: 12/22/09 <br />Revision No.: TR-84