Who is left to care about the death of a wilderness?: June 2012

Restoring the Scars

Wildflowers grow over a reclaimed Phosphate Strip Mine in Polk County Florida.

Mining is necessary for man to get the raw materiel he needs to grow and build. Mining creates scars. Scars can be hidden or healed.

A Mosaic Strip Mine in Bartow ships hundreds of ton a day, and covers 10,000 acres. Top soil is stripped away by giant machines. The phosphate is removed from below it, and the remaining soil is piled in mountainous heaps between runoff lakes for years to await reclamation.

Rules to limit the destruction of mining can protect rivers, wildlife, and the riparian forests that grow along the waterways. These protective bands of forests are often the focus of restoration activities.

The Peace River riparian buffer was once the only "Natural Area" left, just the edge of Mosaic's Peace River Strip mine along the river and a few hundred feet wide. Just wide enough to keep the river healthy.

Wildlife and plants can be encouraged to spread out from the riparian buffers. The sterile areas that are smoothed and replanted following the closing of a mine can soon resemble natural areas, thanks to the bank of wildlife and plants that hid in the undisturbed areas.

No longer a scar, this Park has boardwalk and public facilities. During this visit a swallow tailed Kestrel (a raptor) was observed, and the protected Florida Panther was heard. Both Polk County and Mosaic should be proud of their efforts.

Rules keep everyone honest. But rules are relatively new. The Lead mine below was operated until 1960 in Farmington Missouri. Lead ore is not poisonous and is inert until processed. Adding cyanide and other caustics makes the ore into lead for batteries, solder, and ammunition.

The foamy cyanide was reused a few times, then pumped to a huge open air tank located to the left in this picture. It was then allowed to over flow and flow across the area in the foreground. Only a few dwarf trees have managed to grow in this poisoned ground in the past 50 years. This area is now Missouri Mines State Park, but has not been restored- and may never be anything other than a museum. Mountains of spoils are piled behind the mine buildings, unplanted and unsculpted.
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Not all restoration need be pristine at first. Here, overburden has been left in mounds as artificial hills. Bicyclists, horse riders, and hikers use these hills as recreation. Alafia River State Park was once a strip mine. In the mid 1990's it was designed as a outdoor recreation area of over 6,000 acres. Trees and wildlife have returned, as shown below.