Mastodawn

John Carlos Baez Feb 2

Here's a tale of how nature triumphs in the end.

Steel mills dumped molten slag in parts of Chicago and nearby areas. The slag hardened in layers up to 5 meters deep. These places became barren wastelands. Other industries dumped hot ash and cinders there.

But eventually the steel mills closed.

The deep layers of hard, toxic material were not friendly to plants. Cottonwoods are usually 30 meters tall or more. In the slag fields, stunted cottonwoods grow to just 2 meters.

But rare species that could handle these conditions began to thrive. The lakeside daisy, a federally threatened species lost to Illinois for decades, turned out to grow taller on slag than on topsoil! The capitate spike-rush, last recorded in Illinois in 1894 and considered locally extinct, was rediscovered growing on slag.

And more! Native prairie grasses like little bluestem. Native milkweeds. Even tiny white orchids called sphinx ladies' tresses.

A team of women ecologists began studying these unusual landscapes. They call themselves the Slag Queens.

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John Carlos Baez

Ecologist Alison Anastasio visited a former US Steel South Works site in Chicago. She expected to find “all crap plants” — common invasive weeds. To her surprise she spotted little bluestem and three species of native milkweed. She already knew she didn't want a career as an academic scientist. But she came up with the idea of forming a group to study this ecosystem: “a dream team of people I wanted to work with.”

She knew Laura Merwin from the University of Chicago, and later she met Lauren Umek, a project manager for the Chicago Park District. She invited them to brunch to pitch her idea to research plants growing on slag. Not for any obvious career goal. Just from sheer curiosity.

Merwin and Umek were excited to join her project - which she called a “reverse side hustle,” since it involved a lot of work, but didn't make any money: it actually costs money.

And thus the Slag Queens were born.

Their first paper, “Urban post-industrial landscapes have unrealized ecological potential,” was published in Restoration Ecology in 2022. It argues that slag fields don't need to be fixed. They have ecological value in and of themselves. And land managers should forget whatever ecosystem was there before. Instead, they should look to more exotic ecosystems as a guide, like the dolomite prairies of Illinois, where magnesium-rich rock near the surface makes it hard for ordinary plants to thrive. Slag too is rich in magnesium.

The Slag Queens are continuing their revolutionary work even now! For more, start here:

• Carrie Gous, The beauty of slag, https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/beauty-slag

Some of what I just wrote is a paraphrase of this article.

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@johncarlosbaez
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/243204/the-new-wild-by-fred-pearce/9780807039557

The New Wild by Fred Pearce | Penguin Random House Canada

A provocative book for environmentalists and popular science readers, as well as anyone concerned with the ecological impacts of climate change

Penguin Random House Canada

John Carlos Baez Feb 2

@quoidian - thanks! The ethics of "invasive species" will need to be rethought as we go deeper into the Anthropocene and "pristine nature" becomes a thing of the past. This book looks interesting!

@johncarlosbaez
Let me know your impression?

@johncarlosbaez @quoidian isn't 'pristine nature' one of those impossible ideals? I'm in Australia where we've had 100m of sea level rise since people arrived so questions like "what would nature look like here" are pretty abstract.

"The Biggest Estate on Earth" is a book asking which bits people made.

Morgan ⚧️Feb 3

@moz @johncarlosbaez @quoidian impossible and also colonial in nature. E.g. Spaniards arriving on Turtle Island saw the way indigenous people were actively stewarding the land and demonized it, encouraging instead to leave "wilderness" without any human intervention. Now, a lot of those areas where colonists interfered with native stewardship have been doing worse off without human intervention, e.g. building up kindling for huge ecosystem-destroying wildfires instead of small controlled burns

@quoidian @johncarlosbaez

I think there is a perception that resources for invasive species management are directed at any invasive species wherever they may occur simply because it is non-native. Or that the concern about invasive species impacts (and scientific work on the topic) are unobjective and inappropriately value laden. The reality is that the vast majority of invasive species are largely or completely unmanageable, and most interventions must be defensible from a variety of perspectives before the limited resources that may be available are invested. As someone who has lived and worked on oceanic islands a lot, invasive species' impacts are very conspicuous. Their impacts also create ethical dilemmas in relation to the fate of endemic biodiversity. Functional equivalency arguments don't hold up IMO as they seem to reflect our tendency to view nature as being there primarily to serve human needs. I think this slag heap site acting as refuge for specialist native species is cool, but the story says only a little about the legitimacy, ethics or complexity of our concerns about invasive species - these intersect with so many different aspects of the environment, human health and welfare.

@quoidian @johncarlosbaez

TL;DR people concerned about invasive species and advocating for some action are more aware than most about how unattainable some vision of "pristine nature" is. #IAS #biodiversity #anthropocene

@cbuddenhagen @johncarlosbaez
I live where a 2 km block of ice shifted the last interglacial thaw, betimes a long distance. Every species here, now, is an invasive species that could adapt to a climate regime that is now ending. If there are fewer blackflies in the new Ontario that emerges, I'd be happy.

@cbuddenhagen
This might be another example of viewing ecosystems as being there to serve our needs, but letting invasive herbivores ravage our forests in Aotearoa has a huge impact on the plants ability to store carbon. Instead it is rereleased as carbon dioxide and methane as the animals metabolise the plants they eat
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/125475191/culling-deer-possums-and-other-pests-could-undo-15-per-cent-of-our-annual-climate-impact--forest-and-bird
@quoidian @johncarlosbaez

Stuff

@johncarlosbaez I've heard the campus and adjacent ponds are also getting some curious attention. I hope they're able to connect with some students to grow and/or replicate the group!

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Feb 3

@johncarlosbaez love Love LOVE THIS STORY SO MUCH! it’s about resilience outside of neoliberal, settler-capitalist conventions and not just from an ecological point of view; but a academic and scientist point of view as well.

John Carlos Baez Feb 3

@blogdiva - yeah, it's full of deep points. You'd probably enjoy the longer version I linked to, if you haven't already read it.

Sci-Fi Girl Feb 3

@johncarlosbaez

Their conclusion reminds a little bit of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind". In as beautiful a way as possible. 💖 🌿

Katykayay Feb 3

@johncarlosbaez How much do I love this story? Let me count the ways. . .or never mind. It's just singularly delightful!

Andy Wootton Feb 3

@johncarlosbaez As a child, I used to play (against my Mother's wishes) on an area of grey coal-mining slag in the Cannock Chase coal-field. It's now in recovery and a local farmer has been tree planting, to supplement the willows that naturally grew along the brook. The trees are protected by fence from the deer that have moved into the area, to escape the noise and disruption of an area of housing development a couple of Miles away. In the summer there are butterflies and dragon-flies.

Edelruth, PBS Passport Holder Feb 3

@johncarlosbaez

I actually wept for the prairie grass- good tears. Nature will heal. Extraordinary article. Thank you

@johncarlosbaez this is fascinating and amazing. Thank you for posting and for the link to the article.

John Carlos Baez Feb 4

@cetan - thanks! Yes, it's amazing how these species are showing up in slag fields!

https://www.chicagobotanic.org/blog/plant-science-conservation/wasteland-garden

Can a Wasteland Become a Garden?

Chicago Botanic Garden

Coles Street Pothole Feb 4

@johncarlosbaez "Slag Queens," lol awesome name. Nature finds a way. Once, this entire planet was slag, in a way.