Some news from the trenches.

[flowerbug]

An article about acid mine discharges and restored streams:

Long-term monitoring shows successful restoration of mining-polluted streams

Despite differences in aquatic life and toxic metals in streams across a broad region of the western United States, scientists found common responses to cleanup of acid mine drainage.

news.ucsc.edu

good to hear that some things can be improved, fixed, restored.

 

[heirloomgal]

I have some good news to add to your topic @flowerbug. The city I live in is a mining town, has 5 mines, mill, refinery, smelter, one of the largest mining complexes in the world. There are a lot of people employed in the industry and have been for over 100 years. Many families here have had multiple generations working in the mines. At one time the environment was obviously in bad shape as a result, specially with open pit roasting etc. Soot would accumulate just overnight on a windowsill, and in certain places people had to pull a shirt up over their face to avoid the terrible air. But! There has been a lot of effort now to 'regreen' things. I worked as a teen/young adult in groups that hiked huge forest areas spreading thousands of bags of lime. Minimum of 7 on your back, and when they were wet....pudding slid down! Many young people here have had that job and it appears to be effective. Millions of trees have been planted, and the city truly is getting green again. There is still quite a bit of black bare rock, but the forest areas are increasing for sure. So there is hope to turn things around!

 

[flowerbug]

where i went to college all those years ago was in the middle of the mining area known as the Copper Country in the UP of MI in the USoA. i've always been facinated by geology along with mining so that was a very interesting place for me to be and i picked up a lot about the history of the area over the 15 years i lived up there.

like you report @heirloomgal the area was heavily changed from the mining activities and pollution and some parts of it have been restored but there are some places where there are continuing effects that will need to be addressed.

what was mined in that area?

 

[heirloomgal]

Nickel #1, but cobalt, copper, platinum group metals, gold, silver. It's one of the most mineral rich areas in the world having been hit by a huge meteorite (10-15 km diameter) long ago creating the 2nd or 3rd largest crater in the world. Apparently, the area is still relatively unexplored.

Edit: I just checked the figures - 9.8 million trees planted here from 1978-2019 and 3,400 hectares of land limed...

 

[flowerbug]

that's interesting for sure! i'll have to check it out, i need something to read up on.

 

[flowerbug]

i enjoyed watching this one and in an hour he covers most of the topics you'd find in a permaculture course. and yes, there's plenty more to learn all the time, but still great to see someone doing interesting things with their land other than stripping it down to subsoil and killing everything else off in the process.

 

[Marie2020]

i enjoyed watching this one and in an hour he covers most of the topics you'd find in a permaculture course. and yes, there's plenty more to learn all the time, but still great to see someone doing interesting things with their land other than stripping it down to subsoil and killing everything else off in the process.

Thanks for sharing