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activities will not affect the continued existence of threatened or endangered plant <br />species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of their critical habitats. <br />Revegetation success criteria, monitoring plans and methods of comparison for testing <br />revegetation success are addressed in Volume 12, Tab 13, Appendix 13-13. Cover and <br />production success for the major mine area vegetation communities will be based on <br />weighted average reference area comparisons as described on pages 13-13-3 through <br />13-13-10 of Appendix 13-13 of Tab 13. The cover standard for mine area reclamation <br />will be based on adjusted weighted average reference area herbaceous cover from the <br />mountain brush reference area and the sagebrush reference area. The reference areas <br />will be added and the herbaceous cover value will be doubled to set the success <br />standard. For the mine area vegetation this adjustment is deemed appropriate, because <br />unadjusted reference area herbaceous cover in the mine area vegetation types would be <br />insufficient to control erosion; whereas use of total cover would result in a standard <br />unlikely to be achieved for decades, given the dense canopy associated with late <br />successional shrub communities in the mine area. <br />Diversity in reclaimed areas will be based on a performance standard reflecting <br />evaluation of monitoring data from reference areas and reclaimed areas collected since <br />1987. The proposed assessment of adequately diverse vegetational composition at the <br />Seneca II Mine will take the form of the following four tests; success is demonstrated <br />by passing at least two of the three Alternative Tests (B, C, or D) plus the Mandatory <br />Test (A). <br />Mandatory Test A: No Overwhelming Dominant <br />No single plant species may exceed 60% relative cover. <br />Alternative Test B: Total Species Density Test <br />This overall reclamation diversity standard will be judged based on the <br />species density values observed along with cover sampling in the 100 <br />sq.m. sample plots. Species density numbers will be subject to sample <br />adequacy assessment. <br />Alternative Test C: Assessment of the Distribution of Species <br />Abundance among Lifeforms in Comparison to the Reference Areas <br />This standard uses the Motyka similarity index to assess the <br />resemblance of the distribution of species density by lifeform of the <br />reclamation vegetation to that of the Reference Areas. If the calculated <br />index of similarity by lifeform equals or exceeds 90 percent of the <br />standard, then Alternative Test C has been passed. <br />Alternative Test D: Assessment of the Presence of Native Species <br />This test is conducted as a direct test of the presence of native species in <br />the reclaimed area by comparison of the cumulative list of species <br />present in the reclamation cover sample locations to the average number <br />26