When I visited Sudbury, in Ontario, Canada, for the first time in the mid-1990s, I had gone to give a lecture at the university—and while I was there I heard a fantastic story. A story of destruction and renewal that so inspired me that I returned, several years later, to learn more about this transformation. And realized, for the first time, that it was possible that a landscape utterly devastated by years of destructive human activity could—with time, money and determination—recover. And become once again beautiful.
During my first rushed visit, I was hosted by the giant copper smelting company Falconbridge, Ltd., one of the corporations that had been responsible for most of the recent environmental damage. And they explained some of the measures they, and others, had taken to repair some of that damage.
During my second visit in 2002, I was able to see some of the restoration work for myself, and meet some of the people involved. For more than a hundred years, the environment for miles around Sudbury had been exploited, starting with the loggers who arrived in the late 1880s, followed by the prospectors, and finally the huge copper and nickel smelting plants. At first, lumbermen began to harvest the huge red and white pines; then they turned to the oaks, maples, black and white spruces, balsam firs, and jack pines. And as these trees were removed, birch and poplar trees moved in. In 1884 the railway arrived, bringing prospectors searching for minerals and increasing the number of lumbermen in the area. This saw the destruction of the last of the original forest.
Damaged Crops, Acid Rain, a Barren Moonscape: The Mining Industry Wreaks Havoc
Meanwhile, it was found that Sudbury’s sulfide rocks harbored copper and the world’s largest known concentration of nickel, for which there was a huge demand from the military. From the early1880s to 1929, mining companies built open “roast yards.” Trainloads of crushed rock were dumped on burning beds of wood culled from the remaining trees in the forest. These fires sometimes smoldered for two months, driving off sulfur from the copper and nickel ore—and creating dense clouds of smoke laden with sulfur dioxide. So thick was this smoke during “fumigations” that people sometimes had to install ropes from house to outhouse, and those trying to grow vegetables had to cover them with sacks.
Next came giant smelters that concentrated the copper and nickel. Once a week huge amounts of sulfur dioxide gas, carrying metal particles, belched from the smokestacks, creating a thick, stinking, toxic smog. Through the years the soil became increasingly acidified, vegetation shriveled, animals and birds vanished, and life gradually disappeared from the lakes as they were fed acidified water from the streams.
First Failed Attempt
The new environmental movement of the 1960s led to the Air Pollution Act, which mandated tough limits on industrial emissions—but it was seldom enforced. Eventually, though, the Ontario government started cracking down on annual emission limits in 1969 and 1970. After this, Inco not only closed a smelter but also built a 1,250-foot smokestack. As a result, two-thirds of the pollution was gone from Sudbury. But much of it did not disappear from the environment; instead, because of the height of the smokestack, the emissions from Sudbury’s industrial facilities, laden with sulfur compounds, were causing acid rain as far away as six hundred miles.
At this point the desolate, bleak landscape around Sudbury, with its vast sea of dead tree stumps and blackened rock faces, was described as looking like a “moonscape.” So much so, in fact, that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) used Sudbury’s barren landscape as its rehearsal space for lunar surface landings in the 1970s.
A Call to Action
By this time scientific surveys had shown that it wasn’t only the acidity of the soil that was inhibiting the restoration of vegetation; other factors were metal toxicity, lack of moisture, and frost. Scientists began a series of experiments to find the best way to help heal the despoiled country. They found that adding lime to acidic soil “turned out to be magnificent,” as one professor said. Through trial and error, they determined the right mixture of crushed limestone, fertilizer, and grass seeds.
In 1973, a group of people, wanting to actively help in the restoration of their environment, formed a Vegetation Advancement Technical Advisory Committee—VETAC. Members were drawn from college and university, industry, government, and, eventually, increasing numbers of the general public. But it was the declining employment of the mining industry that provided a real boost for the greening of Sudbury. In 1978, the companies were forced to lay off many of their staff, and were unable to offer students the usual summer jobs. The city stepped in and created a Reclamation Program that would (1) provide summer employment for students, (2) improve appearances, and (3) attract new people and business.
This became one of the largest community-based restorations of industrially disturbed land ever. The program employed almost two hundred students in the summer of 1978 to improve the view for visitors. They removed debris from 284 acres and planted six thousand trees, shrubs, and herbs. They also collected seeds for germination. The following year, thanks to the success of the project, even more students got summer jobs. And so it went, year after year, with new partners coming in to help with the funding. By 1984, twelve million dollars had been spent, four hundred thousand trees planted, and 6,514 acres greened.
Trees, Trout, Trumpeter Swans: An Amazing Renewal
Meanwhile, the mining companies were still working to improve their environmental responsibility. In 1991 Inco, at one time the worst polluter in North America, installed a new kind of furnace that actually enables the firm to contain 90 percent of its sulfur emissions. The improved air quality meant that some trees, like birch, began to colonize naturally on previously barren land. And then someone found that the temperature one mile underground in Inco’s mine was perfect for a greenhouse. Artificial light was added, and hundreds of seedlings were raised there.
And still the program expands. Sudbury now has an annual Earth Month. In 1999, residents cleaned a river that runs through town; the following year, they were able to reintroduce brook trout. The Sudbury Naturalist Club plants trees in wilderness areas each year, and many kinds of birds, deer, moose, and bear are returning. A herd of fifty elk was reintroduced, and by the start of the new millennium three pairs of peregrine falcons had established themselves in their old territory (after an absence of more than fifty years), along with one pair of trumpeter swans.
When I visited Sudbury for the second time in 2002, I was asked to participate in a ceremony where book trout were released into a Junction Creek—a small stream once severely damaged by the region’s smelters and mines as well as other factors. Now the stream has been restored enough to safely host the beautiful schools of brook trout. Local Roots & Shoots children helped me release the glistening fish; it was a joyous occasion.
During that same visit, I also took part in the official opening of a new nature trail. It was hard to imagine that the beautiful landscape before me, lush with grass, red and white pines, white spruce, and white birch trees could ever have been barren. And so, to show just how much has been accomplished, one thirty-two-hundred-acre area known as Barrens Preserve has been left untreated.
The blackened rock is a stark reminder of the harm our species is able to inflict. The original forests have not returned, nor will they. But the area is beautiful. And as I turned away from the blackened rocks of yesterday, I was just in time to glimpse the arrow-swift flight of a peregrine falcon. Almost as though nature herself was sending me a message of hope to share with the world. They gave me a feather, found near one of the nests, as a symbol of the success of this giant project.
