4th Annual
2012 Arbor Day Planting Event

May 4, 2012

Students at Lake City Middle School in the Coal Creek watershed and Norwood Middle School in Oliver Springs established indoor American chestnut nurseries in their classrooms in February.  They have been watering and fertilizing them, in preparation for transplanting them to a mine site prepared by the Forestry Reclamation Approach. 


Lake City Middle School Indoor Nursery


Norwood Middle School Greenhouse Nursery

 We planned on holding the Arbor Day 2012 planting event on former abandoned mine land owned by The Coal Creek Company in the Coal Creek OHV recreational area, which was re-mined and reclaimed using the Forestry Reclamation Approach.  Due to logistical concerns with getting 100 students to that site on Windrock Mountain, a new site has been selected closer to Norwood Middle School with easier access.  The new planting site is located off Back Valley Road between Oliver Springs and Coalfield on property owned by the Coal Creek Company as shown below.

In addition to their potted American chestnut seedlings, students will also plant bare-root seedlings of various species provided by the Tennessee Mining Association and the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation, Inc.  Additional details about re-mining in Tennessee, and how FRA sites are part of the American Chestnut Foundation’s plan to introduce blight-resistant chestnuts into Appalachian forests, can be found at http://www.coalcreekaml.com/MineRecLesson3.htm.  
Welsh miners helped Oliver Springs and Coal Creek rebuild after the Civil War, as will be chronicled in the new book, The Welsh of Tennessee, by Dr. Eirug Davies of Harvard University.  Furthermore, miners from both areas were involved in the Coal Creek War to abolish the use of convict labor in Tennessee’s coal mines from 1891 to 1892.  A history lesson will be provided as part of the planting event.

Click on image
to enlarge
upcoming
book cover

Aerial photograph of new planting site

See classroom nurseries set up for previous plantings

See Mine Reclamation Lesson of 2011's site
 

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