Indiana Surface-Mine Forests: Historical Development and Composition of a Human-Created Vegetation Complex

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 28, No. 1, May 1988, pp. 19-33 INDIANA SURFACE-MINE FORESTS: HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND COMPOSITION OF A HUMAN-CREATED VEGETATION COMPLEX* Timothy S. Brothers INTRODUCTION. Human disturbance of natural vegetation is a classic theme in biogeography and ecology, but little attention has been paid to the new human-created vegetation types of reclaimed landscapes, including highway margins, power-line corridors, overgrazed rangeland, industrial wasteland, and mine spoils. (1) Surface-mine reclamation began more than 60 years ago in the Midwestern United States, but the origins and patterning of surface-mine vegetation communities have scarcely been studied. (2) This paper examines afforestation of surface mines in Indiana from the 1920s through 1975, an era when afforestation was the primary means of reclaiming Indiana mined lands. My object is to describe the history and composition of these forest plantings and to suggest what social and ecological factors have been most important in their development. The major sources of data for this paper are three archival collections : 1.State nursery records. State forest nurseries supplied almost all trees planted on Indiana mined lands. Statewide summaries of nursery tree sales to coal companies are contained in annual reports of the Indiana Department of Conservation through 1964 and in invoices at nursery offices for years thereafter. 2.Revegetation plans. Since 1941 state law has required Indiana surface -mine operators to file revegetation plans for areas mined each year. Most early records were destroyed by fire in 1950, but later plans are available in the state archives and offices of the Indiana Division of Reclamation . With varying completeness, the plans record planting acreage and location, vegetation type, species composition, and planting practices . Actual revegetation sometimes deviated from these plans because * This research was supported by grants from Research and Sponsored Programs , Indiana University, Indianapolis, and benefitted from the comments of Robert Beck and two anonymous reviewers. Dr. Brothers is Assistant Professor of Geography at Indiana University in Indianapolis, IN 46202. 20Southeastern Geographer of nursery tree shortages or simply the failure of coal companies to reclaim the lands mined, but their general picture of revegetation agrees with that from other sources. 3. Records of the Indiana Coal Producers' Association. The Indiana Coal Producers' Association and its successors, based in Terre Haute, supervised over 90% of plantings at Indiana coal mines before the mid-1970s. Its files contain summaries of vegetation actually planted by each member company during most years from 1945 through 1971, as well as correspondence related to reclamation. These materials are incomplete , particularly before 1940, but they are a useful supplement to the other sources. PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL SETTING. The Indiana coal region is part of the Illinois Coal Basin, which includes most of Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and western Kentucky (Fig. 1). The Indiana coal seams dip southwest toward the center of the basin in southern Illinois, confining surface mining to a relatively narrow north-south band where the coal is shallow enough to be mined economically. Surface mining began in Indiana before 1900 but became important only after World War I, when lower labor costs and development of large mechanized shovels prompted a rapid shift from underground to surface coal extraction. By 1970 approximately 90% of Indiana coal was surface mined. (3) FOREST HISTORY. Systematic attempts to revegetate Indiana mined lands apparently began during the 1920s under the aegis of the Indiana Coal Producers' Association (ICPA). (4) These initial reclamation efforts, some 15 years before passage of Indiana's first reclamation law, may have been prompted by the state Division of Forestry, which was then sponsoring a campaign to afforest abandoned or eroding farmland in southern Indiana. (5) By 1928 Division foresters were supplying planting advice and the state forest nursery was selling trees at cost to coal companies, an arrangement that led to rapid nursery expansion during the 1930s. Indiana's first reclamation law, in 1941, placed administration of reclamation in the Division of Forestry, where it remained until establishment of a separate Division of Reclamation in the 1970s. (6) This law specifically encouraged commercial forestry, requiring that state afforestation standards adhere to commercial practice. State foresters thus dominated early surface-mine reclamation, and forests made up an estimated...