Restoring a wasteland to create a Florida-type ecosystem gained recognition for the Camp Blanding Environmental Restoration Team in the recent Secretary of the Army Environmental Awards competition.
In the 1950s, nearly two decades before adoption of regulations to protect the environment and well before its 1993 transfer to the Florida Army National Guard, approximately 500 acres of Camp Blanding's western area supported titanium dioxide mining. That land developed 30- to 40-foot-deep pockets of well-drained sands with virtually no organic material or nutrients to support plant life. Along with its inability to support vegetation, the land was useless in supporting the Guard mission of training Soldiers.
To bring the former mining lands back to life and create an area that can enable readiness in the future, Camp Blanding's environmental restoration team came up with a plan to remediate these sites by reintroducing organic material. Unfortunately, this is a slow process, taking five to ten years to produce viable soil, but the team found an opportunity to shorten that time to less than six years. The key to success was partnerships.
First Camp Blanding partnered with local counties that needed help disposing of organic debris resulting from hurricanes to use as mulch. Restoration staff members collected organic material spreading it as mulch over the land and then tilling the top layer as the mulch broke down, driving nutrients below the surface to turn the sand into functional soil.
On another part of the installation, an effort to remediate 88 miles of swales to help protect the St. Johns River and watershed was ongoing. The swales capture runoff soils during heavy rains and can increase turbidity in the river if they are swept into the water. In addition, these swales contain nitrogen and phosphorous from agriculture operations, which can also cause algae in the river, harming water quality and wildlife.
To address Camp Blanding's potential storm water impacts, the soils near the river needed to be removed, but instead of conventional remediation, which would involve disposing of the soil, the team arranged to relocate it to the mining restoration site where it was tilled into the sand. The richness of this sand-soil combination shortened the wait time and long leaf pine were planted on two acres in 2014 as a test to see if they could survive.
The team partnered with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to gain approval for the simultaneous solution to both mining and swale remediation. And the results for both are proving successful.
Realizing an 80 percent survival rate for the long-leaf pine, planting was accelerated in 2015 and the planting of pines expanded to an additional 15 acres. The team will continue scaling up planting goals over the next three years to ensure the site continues to support vegetation at the anticipated levels.
As the initial plantings take hold, the restoration staff is also managing for invasive or exotic species that may emerge, preventing those species from taking root.
Water and soil sampling at the mining site have shown no contaminants or adverse effects from the sand reclamation.
Using swale soil has allowed Camp Blanding to meet its St. Johns River protection requirement and fully address the 88-mile swale remediation allotment well ahead of Florida Department of Environmental Protection timelines, and in a mutually beneficial and virtually cost-free way.
Though it may take 12 to 15 years for the new forests to take hold, and 15 to 30 years before a fully functional ecosystem emerges, it will emerge from what was a virtual wasteland. Once forested, this previously unusable land can be opened up to new training activities.
The revitalized land also is making an opportunity for new partnerships. In the future the staff plans on working through the Youth ChalleNGe program to enlist students in the program that provides environmental projects and education to at-risk youth, to help bring these restored areas back to flourishing ecosystems.
As a result of these efforts, Camp Blanding is the Fiscal Year 2015 Secretary of the Army Environmental Awards Program winner for Environmental Restoration -- Team winner and will go on to compete with other services in the Secretary of Defense competition later this year.
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