2011-06-27_REPORT - C1981014 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

in the Division's "Guidelines with Land Use and Vegetation Requirements of the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board for Coal Mining" issued in June of 1988 and the "Guidelines Regarding Selected Coal Mine Bond Release Issues" issued April 18, 1995. In addition to these guidelines, the proposed regulation changes issued on March 27, 2003 entitled "Revegetation, Land Use, Wildlife and Alluvial Valley Floors" and formally adopted September 14, 2005 by the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology (DMG) and corresponding documents were used with respect to sample adequacy calculations and proposed statistical comparisons. The specific limits of the specific reclamation units sampled were taken from the 2005 Annual Reclamation Report Maps for both the Southfield Mine Area and the Southfield Loadout Area. Prior to commencing the field sampling and during the preparation of this report, the Permit monitoring requirements were reviewed and discussed with Mr. Patterson and Ms. Janet Binns of the Colorado Division of Reclamation Mining & Safety (DRMS) regarding the proposed sampling methods and data analysis methods to be used, Conceptual agreement car► the samtilitag methodology used in this evaluation. In this evaluation, the vegetation parameters of product jot d, plant cover, species diversity and shrub density were sampled. These data were then utilized to evaluate the successfulness of revegetation efforts with respect to revegetation success standards with respect to plant cover, forage production, species diversity, and shrub density. Transect Locations. To ensure that all of the areas within each corresponding rcclailiation block sampled, had an equal chance of being sampled, each proposed reclamation area was treated as an individual sample unit and a totally randomized sampling effort was implemented. t the 2005 reclamation maps, prepared by EFCI, and a Trimble Model Geo XH GPS unit, the extreme north, south, east and west boundaries of each site sampled were converted to the 1983 Colorado State Plan South Central Zone (NAD 83) coordinate system. The interval used in the state plan coordinate system is based on foot increments. Given the typical real -time accuracy of this GPS unit of plus or minus 18 inches, all of the transect locations were field located at a sub - meter accuracy. (;once the boundaries of the reclaimed area were identified, then using a specially prepared computer program which generates random coordinates, the potential transect location coordinates were identified. These coordinates were then entered into the GPS unit and the transect location starting points were marked in the field. At each transect location starting point, the transect direction was determined by selecting a random direction based on the degrees at the compass (1 to 360 Once the transect orientation was determined, then the 50- meter steel tape was laid out across the site. All transects were kept within the sample unit boundaries. In instances where the transect placement resulted in the transect alignment crossing a sample unit boundary, the transect line was backed up for that portion of which crossed the boundary line 180 degrees. Where the transect tape could not be placed within a narrow reclaimed area due to boundary constraints, then the transect line was changed 90 degrees at the point where the boundary line was crossed to ensure that the entire transect alignment was located within the area to be sampled. Reclaimed Areas S ,pled. The Vento Reclamation, which consists of five different reclamation blocks reseeded in October 2003, the Corley Reclamation, which consists of one 2