Transplanting vegetation from Canyonlands National Park to the Moab Site
Transplanting vegetation from Canyonlands National Park to the Moab Site allowed EM to avoid costs on purchasing new plants. Pictured are Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project employees Jose Fernandez, left, and Jason Atwater.

MOAB, Utah – An EM partnership with Canyonlands National Park has blossomed.

This spring, the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project teamed with the National Park Service (NPS) to relocate native plants from the park to the Moab Site.

Canyonlands needed to make way for an upcoming construction project and didn’t want the plants to go to waste. The Moab UMTRA Project happens to cultivate native plants, such as perennial grasses, to revegetate areas of the site that aren’t covered by the uranium mill tailings pile.

A crew dug up about 100 mature grasses and shrubs from the park and planted them where there is a high potential for survival. The salvaged, drought-tolerant plants won’t require much water and they help create a more natural state. 

Grasses from Canyonlands National Park are shown planted at the Moab Site.
Grasses from Canyonlands National Park are shown planted at the Moab Site.

 

“Restoring native vegetation in a disturbed desert ecosystem is a long and difficult task,” Moab UMTRA Project Environmental Technician Luke Mattson said. “By partnering with local ecological restoration professionals in the community, we are working together to share knowledge and resources to create a sustainable and resilient landscape.”

A resilient landscape includes making the Moab Site fauna-friendly.

“Bunchgrasses such as Indian ricegrass that we salvaged have large, nutritious seeds that are a critical food source for many wildlife species,” said Liz Ballenger, ecologist and vegetation program manager with the NPS.