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Title: Annual monitoring report for the Gunnison, Colorado, wetlands mitigation plan

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/125040· OSTI ID:125040

The US Department of Energy (DOE) administers the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project to clean up uranium mill tailings and other surface contamination at 24 abandoned uranium mill sites in 10 states. One of these abandoned mill sites is near the town of Gunnison, Colorado; surface remediation and the environmental impacts of remedial action are described in the Gunnison environmental assessment (EA) (DOE, 1992). Remedial action resulted in the elimination of 4.3 acres (ac) 1.7 hectares (ha) of wetlands and mitigation of this loss of wetlands is being accomplished through the enhance of 18.4 ac (7.5 ha) of riparian plant communities in six spring feed areas on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. The description of the impacted and mitigation wetlands is provided in the Mitigation and Monitoring Plan for Impacted Wetlands at the Gunnison UMTRA Project Site, Gunnison, Colorado (DOE, 1994), which is attached to the US Army corps of Engineers (USACE) Section 404 Permit. As part of the wetlands mitigation plan, the six mitigation wetlands were fenced in the fall of 1993 to exclude livestock grazing. Baseline of grazed conditions of the wetlands vegetation was determined during the summer of 1993 (DOE, 1994). A 5-year monitoring program of these six sites has been implemented to document the response of vegetation and wildlife to the exclusion of livestock. This annual monitoring report provides the results of the first year of the 5-year monitoring period.

Research Organization:
Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-91AL62350
OSTI ID:
125040
Report Number(s):
DOE/AL/62350-198; ON: DE96002054; TRN: AHC29528%%75
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: Oct 1995
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English