Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

A gas well blowout in 2011, in a remote area of Village Creek State Park in East Texas, burned acres of brush and trees; including newly planted native longleaf pines, part of a reforestation effort by Texas Parks and Wildlife.

06— It was a huge fireball, with several hundreds if not thousands degrees; it cooked a huge area.

David Riskind, director of the natural resource program for state parks, says the agency came to a damage claim settlement with the drilling company, and is using the funds to develop a restoration plan…

32—And implement that restoration plan on the type of site and soils which would have been occupied naturally by longleaf pine. So, here we are; we’ve begun to restore the site. We’ve tried to put back the site in its natural condition, using natural contours, that we got from our own experience and also from the topo maps that we have available before the site was site prepped for timber production. And, we’ve begun phase one of the restoration of this – about 180 acre – longleaf pine restoration project.

Longleaf pines were nearly logged to extinction, and with them, the plants and animals that call that habitat home. With this restoration, the agency hopes to see an eventual revival of the forest, flora and fauna.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 13th, 2013 at 12:00 am and is filed under Conservation, State Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.