Restoration Planning, Implementation, and Monitoring: Invasive Species Eradication and Control Program at the Little Saint Francis River Chat Pile
Among sites undergoing restoration activities as part of the Southeast Missouri Mining District (SEMO) Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration settlement, the Little St. Francis River Chat Pile (LSFR) will be one the first in Madison County at which primary ecological restoration will be implemented. CERC scientists are collaborating with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (The Missouri Trustees) to assess the site, develop restoration goals and objectives, implement restoration actions, and monitor restoration progress.
The Issue: Located in southeast Missouri, The Little Saint Francis River restoration site is 51 hectares of land surrounding the former location of a lead ore milling pile of waste chat contaminated with high concentrations of lead and other heavy metals. The Missouri Trustees solicited help to perform pre-restoration site assessment, and to plan and implement restoration on the site.
Addressing the Issue: During the autumn of 2017 and spring of 2018, CERC scientists conducted a pre-restoration site assessment to characterize vegetation communities and inventory invasive species at the Little St. Francis River chat pile restoration site. Community characterization data collection was based on US National Vegetation Mapping Program methods; invasive species sampling used a gridded sample design following National Park Service Heartland Network protocols.
In addition to the 1.6 hectare floodplain field where the chat pile once stood, sampling documented the presence of upland igneous oak woodlands, bottomland and footslope deciduous forests, and cedar-dominated old fields. Given the forests and woodlands present on the site, it offers excellent opportunities to protect and manage a broad variety of vegetation communities representative of the St. Francis Knobs and Basins. These communities will benefit greatly from the planned removal and control of invasive species, the most abundant of which are bush and vine honeysuckle, burning bush, autumn olive, Asian privet, and eastern red cedar. Removal of these species will create more open woodland conditions on upland sites and facilitate expansion of native species on the river floodplain and tributary drains.
The site of the former chat pile was planted to bottomland hardwoods in the fall of 2017. During the spring of 2018, results from pre-restoration invasive species mapping informed the removal of invasive species from upland slopes. Prescribed burning will be used to further reduce woody stem densities and alter species composition to match native natural communities appropriate for igneous slopes in the region.
Next Steps:
Using the LSFR site as a model, CERC scientists are collaborating with restoration practitioners to develop a programmatic approach to planning, implementing, and monitoring ecosystem restorations. That approach will catalyze restoration activity in SEMO and at other NRDAR sites by:
- Characterizing the composition of vegetation communities prior to restoration
- Identifying appropriate reference communities to inform the development of restoration goals and objectives with quantifiable endpoints
- Quantifying the abundance of selected invasive species to inform planning and implementation of invasive control strategies
- Designing and implementing short-and long-term monitoring methods to document restoration progress and invasive control
Return to Ecological Restoration
Return to Conservation, Quantitative, and Restoration Ecology
Among sites undergoing restoration activities as part of the Southeast Missouri Mining District (SEMO) Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration settlement, the Little St. Francis River Chat Pile (LSFR) will be one the first in Madison County at which primary ecological restoration will be implemented. CERC scientists are collaborating with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (The Missouri Trustees) to assess the site, develop restoration goals and objectives, implement restoration actions, and monitor restoration progress.
The Issue: Located in southeast Missouri, The Little Saint Francis River restoration site is 51 hectares of land surrounding the former location of a lead ore milling pile of waste chat contaminated with high concentrations of lead and other heavy metals. The Missouri Trustees solicited help to perform pre-restoration site assessment, and to plan and implement restoration on the site.
Addressing the Issue: During the autumn of 2017 and spring of 2018, CERC scientists conducted a pre-restoration site assessment to characterize vegetation communities and inventory invasive species at the Little St. Francis River chat pile restoration site. Community characterization data collection was based on US National Vegetation Mapping Program methods; invasive species sampling used a gridded sample design following National Park Service Heartland Network protocols.
In addition to the 1.6 hectare floodplain field where the chat pile once stood, sampling documented the presence of upland igneous oak woodlands, bottomland and footslope deciduous forests, and cedar-dominated old fields. Given the forests and woodlands present on the site, it offers excellent opportunities to protect and manage a broad variety of vegetation communities representative of the St. Francis Knobs and Basins. These communities will benefit greatly from the planned removal and control of invasive species, the most abundant of which are bush and vine honeysuckle, burning bush, autumn olive, Asian privet, and eastern red cedar. Removal of these species will create more open woodland conditions on upland sites and facilitate expansion of native species on the river floodplain and tributary drains.
The site of the former chat pile was planted to bottomland hardwoods in the fall of 2017. During the spring of 2018, results from pre-restoration invasive species mapping informed the removal of invasive species from upland slopes. Prescribed burning will be used to further reduce woody stem densities and alter species composition to match native natural communities appropriate for igneous slopes in the region.
Next Steps:
Using the LSFR site as a model, CERC scientists are collaborating with restoration practitioners to develop a programmatic approach to planning, implementing, and monitoring ecosystem restorations. That approach will catalyze restoration activity in SEMO and at other NRDAR sites by:
- Characterizing the composition of vegetation communities prior to restoration
- Identifying appropriate reference communities to inform the development of restoration goals and objectives with quantifiable endpoints
- Quantifying the abundance of selected invasive species to inform planning and implementation of invasive control strategies
- Designing and implementing short-and long-term monitoring methods to document restoration progress and invasive control
Return to Ecological Restoration
Return to Conservation, Quantitative, and Restoration Ecology