From the Duluth News Tribune, by Lee Bloomquist
CHISHOLM - Ray Svatos doesn't have to spend a lot of green to make trees.
For about 25 cents apiece, Svatos and the Iron Range Resources Mineland Reclamation staff grow red pine, white pine, white spruce and jack pine seedlings.
Svatos says the big payoff will come down the road.
Forty to 80 years from now, many of the roughly 3 million tree seedlings planted across the Iron Range since 1985 will mature into forests that will cover abandoned mine lands, beautify highway medians and city entrances and serve as a timber resource.
This year, an IRR effort to plant more trees across the taconite mining region is taking tree-planting to a higher level.
Seedling production at two Mineland Reclamation growth chambers at Ironworld Discovery Center in Chisholm will double.
After producing 150,000 seedlings annually in recent years, the total this year will reach 300,000.
"We have a lot of plantings that people don't realize are out there," said Svatos, IRR Mineland Reclamation supervisor. "If you would fly over the area, you could see the effect it's had on the area.
"It's something that's hard to measure, but if we didn't have the reclamation and the laws that we have, this area could look like Appalachia or other areas of the country that don't have this kind of reclamation," Svatos said.
At the end of a two-cycle growing stage, this year's crop of containerized seedlings will be planted next spring on abandoned minelands, along highways and near Iron Range cities.
Two hand-planted crops per year are raised in the temperature- and climate-controlled growth chambers.
Each seedling is grown within a hole in a Styrofoam block, ensuring the growth of a tree "plug" that holds soil and roots. Depending on species, growing time is three to five months.
Sandy Layman, commissioner of the Eveleth-based state economic development agency that operates the Mineland Reclamation division, says the increase is an effort to make the most of the growth chambers' potential.
A healthy IRR budget -- boosted by taconite taxes paid by Iron Range mines -- helped with the agency's tree-planting.
"We feel the tree-planting program is a priority for the area and, if we have the resources there at the reclamation center, that we want to do that," Layman said.
Stepping up tree-planting efforts will, in the short term, help prevent soil erosion, Svatos said.
Over the long term, the seedlings will grow into trees that help clean the air, provide wildlife habitat and aesthetic value and be a timber source.
Jack pine take about 40 to 50 years to mature; white spruce 50 to 60 years; red pine 60 to 70 years; and white pine about 80 years, Svatos said.
"It's a tremendous value to the region," Svatos said. "When people drive along the highways, they really don't see the mining areas. It's not like we're hiding the mining, but with the tree-planting and reclamation that's been done, it doesn't look like a moonscape.
"One of the things we try to emphasize is that they (trees) don't last forever. In the long run we are also helping the forest products industry by providing a resource for forest products."
About 70 percent to 80 percent of the IRR seedlings survive after being planted, Svatos said.
The state Department of Natural Resources will buy about 150,000 of this year's crop of IRR trees for planting in rocky soils near Orr and Tower.
Each year, the DNR sells about 2,200 acres of timber on about 160,000 acres of state land within the northeast region, said Mike Magnuson, DNR area forest supervisor. That includes forests near Cook, Tower, Ely and Babbitt.
About half of the timber regrows naturally, he said. Seedlings planted by contractors hired by the DNR replace the remainder, said Magnuson.
