Resource Extraction

The woods are once again green with new life. In my daily walks I have been enthralled with the beauty and color of the new shoots on the evergreens, particularly the hemlock. While the hemlocks are the darkest shade of green in the forest, the new shoots are the most beautiful shade of almost lime green. Striking.

 So today I decided to run a batch of hemlock, and tried to gather from only branches which are heavy with the new growth. Curious to see if it makes a difference in quality or quantity of oil. When we started distilling last July, the new growth had already become indistinguishable from the normal color of the trees. 

So it goes without saying that plucking the new growth from the branches of trees brings mixed feelings, and got me thinking about "resource extraction." Resource extraction is a dirty word in environmental circles. And, one can argue, given the historical way in which much resource extraction was done, it well should be. But as I was picking today, and contemplating the ethical equation of my actions, I was struck by the notion that resource extraction is the nature of humans, as well as all other organisms. It's not an optional activity, which we can simply do away with. We breathe, we drink water, we ingest food, and we give back... what, carbon dioxide and the products of elimination. Each of us is, in our own small way, a "resource extractor." So if this is the case, in it's simplest terms, resource extraction cannot simply be considered wrong or evil, it must be considered in context. 

For those of you who have read my previous posts here, making oil from the trees on our land was my answer to sustainable use (resource extraction) of the forest. So far, this still seems a viable approach. For all the oil we have produced, I have had very little impact on the woods. Walking through the forest, even I am hard pressed to see the subtle impacts of taking the amount of cedar, hemlock, or balsam required for the process. The woods are large, and I wander rather randomly in my picking forays. 

What also triggered these thoughts about the contextual nature of resource extraction, was the background noise of a fleet of National Guard trucks hauling crushed rock from a crushing site which borders our land. For those of you unfamiliar, our area was recently hit pretty hard by a freak weather event/rainstorm, which resulted in significant damage to roads and property in the area, and has resulted in a disaster declaration and deployment of the National Guard. Kudos to the guard guys, and everyone else pitching in throughout our Copper Country to get things back to normal.

But here's the contextual part. If you are unfamiliar, the part of the UP where we reside is referred to as the "Copper Country," due to a long history of underground copper mining. If you have been to our area, you have no doubt observed the legacy of this resource extraction. Some of that legacy is pretty shocking. Abandoned industrial sites, lakes polluted with industrial waste products, and a population left to struggle with de-industrialization and the social issues which accompany it. But far and away the most obvious legacy is what are locally called "poor rock" piles. Underground mining requires moving a whole lot of rock to get to the veins rich enough in copper to warrant mining. The rock has to go somewhere. It is hauled out of the mine, and dumped in the areas adjacent to the mine. In huge piles. Mountains. There were hundreds of mines in the Copper Country, several of which would still hold standing among the largest underground mines in the history of the world. So these poor rock piles are a notable feature of our area. 

But now for the contextual kicker. These poor rock piles are an absolute blessing if one wishes to make crushed rock. And crushed rock is the salvation for many after the destruction of last weeks's weather. These poor rock piles have been everywhere for as long as I can remember, and I have to admit I had always considered them a negative aspect of the mining legacy. But in recent years they have started to disappear, at a remarkable rate. Some that were so large as to seem impossible to remove are all but gone. I imagine that they will all be gone within fifty years or so. And today, they are invaluable. Some small degree of redemption for what many consider a toxic legacy of resource extraction.