Forests were denuded to provide fuel for the smelting, and the smelting itself caused very acid rain to fall, killing vegetation and fouling streams and ponds. Today, after 60 years of work by the Tennessee Valley Authority, landowners, and public interest groups, millions of trees have been planted and much of the area is undergoing a slow renovation governed by Mother Nature. They remain totally bare. Ammons and his team know why. The acres that remain bare are the dry tailings pond for the former mining and smelting operations.
Tailings are the operations' waste products.
During the mines' heyday, impure ore was ground to a powder and added to water. Minerals of value tended to float in the resulting slurry and were skimmed from the top for further processing. The remaining sludge was stored in the tailings pond. Over the years, the moisture in the tailings pond evaporated, leaving behind the bare pond bottom and, curiously, five wetlands around the fringe. On the day of our visit, a Canada goose was leisurely swimming among the cattails in the largest of the wetland ponds.