Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Roca Honda Mine

Chapter 3. Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences
12, 15, 21, and 27. Before the surveys were performed, a literature review was conducted to
determine which wildlife species had the potential to occur in the permit area.
Surveys were conducted to determine which frogs and amphibians, small mammals, birds,
furbearers and big game, and threatened, endangered, and sensitive species exists in the permit
area. Except for a few small pockets of wetlands within the three main sections (9, 10, 16), there
is no perennial surface water or aquatic habitat found within the mine permit area (RHR, 2009d).
As such, there are no fish species currently living within the permit boundaries and fish are not
discussed further. Below is a discussion of wildlife species found within the permit area.
Roca Honda Mine Permit Area
(Sections 9, 10, and 16) Habitats and Wildlife
Sections 9, 10, and 16 have gently to moderately sloped topography interrupted by sheer rock
faces, mesas, and arroyos. As discussed above, the main vegetation types within the permit area
consist of piñon-juniper woodland (749 acres) with scattered pockets of ponderosa pines, desert
grass/shrublands (865 acres, including 680 acres of juniper savanna), mountain shrub (185 acres),
and semi-stable dunes (17 acres) (table 33). A disturbed piñon-juniper woodland mosaic also
occurs in Section 9 on cliff sides and lower west- and southwest-facing slopes where there are
historic drill hole locations from exploration in the last 40 years. Habitat disturbance within the
permit area includes grazing by native and domestic ungulates, bladed roads and jeep trails,
exploratory drilling, and fences. Several small pools of water apparently gather along some of the
drainages off Jesus Mesa and these areas may support small communities of wetland plants,
indicating that they are moist much of the year.
Because there are numerous large stands of shrubs and also many isolated individual shrubs
within the grasslands found within the permit area, shrublands and grasslands are grouped
together for this analysis of habitat effects. Acres of mountain grassland and mountain shrub
habitat correlate to the shrub-grassland habitat found within the permit area. While the
disturbance anticipated from mining activities cannot be separated between mountain grassland
and mountain shrub habitat, the maximum amount of disturbance that is anticipated in either of
these habitats is analyzed in this document. Grassland habitat includes both grass/shrublands and
juniper savannas.
Table 33. Habitat acreages in Sections 9, 10, and 16
Habitat Type Acres
Mountain Grassland 865
Mountain Shrub 185
Piñon-Juniper Woodland 749
Semi-stable Dunes 17
Within Section 16, habitat consists mainly of heavily grazed desert grassland and very open
piñon-juniper woodland, and the elevation ranges from approximately 7,070 to 7,300 feet.
Several drainage areas are also found in Section 16. Small areas of inundation were found during
surveys conducted in the fall, including one manmade stock pond. Though portions of this section
212 DEIS for Roca Honda Mine, Cibola National Forest