Missouri Master Naturalist Lisa Morin gazes across the Cardinal Valley Restoration Project in search of birds who call the nearly 1,000 acre site home.

For 100 years, the minerals lead and zinc were extracted from the ground in the Tri-State District. This area in Southwest Missouri, Southeast Kansas and Northwest Oklahoma initially produced wealth for small-scale operators. With time, mines consolidated then ceased operations. The final local mining operation in Webb City, Missouri closed up shop in 1957. The community was left with no more mine jobs and vast swaths of the area’s land covered in piles of mine waste, or chat.

In this episode of Mo’ Curious, you’ll meet some people who are using compost and native plantings to build soil. In the process, these Missourians are creating habitat attractive to humans, birds and other living things.

For more information on the Tri-State mining district, check out the dated, but instructive Wilderness Bonanza: The Tri-State District of Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.

For more information about ongoing restoration work on formerly mined lands in the Spring Creek watershed, see the Missouri Department of Natural Resource’s project list here.

Finally, progress on Meredith Ludwig’s Cardinal Valley documentary can be found here.

Thanks for listening. Stay curious, Missouri.