4th Annual Arbor Day
Tree Planting Event
on
Reclaimed Mine Land
Friday, 4 May 2012
Students using dibble bar to plant trees
What do Anderson, Campbell, Claiborne, and Morgan Counties have in common? They all have mine land prepared by the Forestry Reclamation Approach where American chestnuts have been planted. (Map of planting site)
Girls make great tree-planters!
At our 4th annual Arbor Day planting event, approximately 100 students from Lake City and Norwood Middle Schools planted 600 American chestnut, oak, poplar, dogwood, and pine seedlings at the Dalco Mine on property owned by The Coal Creek Company in Morgan County. In addition to transplanting potted American chestnuts they have been growing in their classrooms, students learned how to plant bare-root seedlings.
View previous American
Chestnut
and Arbor Day events.
Group shown on the hillside after planting over 600 trees!!
They were joined by Senator Becky Duncan Massey and volunteers from the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, the Tennessee Mining Association, and the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation. Afterwards, the planters moved to Middle Creek Baptist Church for pizza and a history lesson on the miners of Anderson County.
Barry Thacker, PE and Senator Becky Duncan Massey
(center of back row) pictured with students
Roxanne Reiley, Tennessee Mining Association (R),
planted trees and helped distribute bandanas
that were meant to honor miners who
fought in the Coal Creek War
Do you know that Tennessee miners wore bandanas to signify that they were part of the army fighting the state militia over the use of convict labor during the Coal Creek War from 1891 to 1892? Students continued that tradition by wearing bandanas at the planting event to signify they are part of the army working to restore the American chestnut to reclaimed mine land in Tennessee.
The
students learned of the just published
book The Welsh of
Tennessee by Dr. Eirug Davies, chronicling the exploits of the
Welsh who helped pioneer Tennessee’s fledgling iron and coal industries.
One of them, David R. Thomas, retired from the Fraterville Mine three months
before the great explosion. He had the foresight to donate to
Harvard University his unique collection of Welsh books published in
America.
OSM's Fred Klimas and his planting gang
Carol Moore poses with some of the ladies
Earl Bandy of OSM (R) shows students
the proper planting methods
Senator Becky Duncan Massey and
Chris Miller of OSM
OSM's George Gunn with his
gang of tree planters
Dick Geiger of the Clinch River Trout Unlimited
said he had the "Super" crew
